of Good and Evil in the Consciences of men which is evident by those Laws which are common in all Countries for the preserving human societies the encouragment of Vertue and discouragement of Vice What Standard should they have for those Laws but a common reason The designe of those Laws was to keep men within the bounds of Goodness for mutual commerce whence the Apostle calls the Heathen Magistrate a Minister of God for Good Rom. 13.4 and the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law Rom. 2.14 Man in the first instant of the use of reason finds natural principles within himself directing and choosing them he finds a distinction between good and evil how could this be if there were not some rule in him to try and distinguish good and evil If there were not such a law and rule in man he could not sin for where there is no Law there is no transgression If man were a Law to himself and his own will his Law there could be no such thing as evil whatsoever he willed would be good and agreeable to the Law and no action could be accounted sinful The worst act would be as commendable as the best Every thing at mans appointment would be good or evil If there were no such Law how should men that are naturally inclined to evil disapprove of that which is unlovely and approve of that good which they practise not No man but inwardly thinks well of that which is good while he neglects it and thinks ill of that which is evil while he commits it Those that are vitious do praise those that practise the contrary vertues Those that are evil would seem to be good and those that are blameworthy yet will rebuke evil in others This is really to distinguish between good and evil whence doth this arise by what rule do we measure this but by some innate principle And this is universal the same in one man as in another the same in one Nation as in another they are born with every man and inseparable from his nature Prov. 27.19 As in water face answers to face so the heart of man to man Common reason supposeth that there is some hand which hath fixed this distinction in man How could it else be universally imprest No Law can be without a Law-giver no sparks but must be kindled by some other Whence should this Law then derive its original Not from man he would fain blot it out and cannot alter it when he pleases Natural generation never intended it t is setled therefore by some higher hand which as it imprinted it so it maintains it against the violences of men who were it not for this Law would make the world more than it is an Aceldema and field of blood For had there not been some supream good the measure of all other goodness in the world we could not have had such a thing as good The Scripture gives us an account that this good was distinguisht from evil before man fell they were objecta scibilia good was commanded and evil prohibited and did not depend upon man From this a man may rationally be instructed that there is a God For he may thus argue I find my self naturally obliged to do this thing and avoid that I have therfore a superior that doth oblige me I find something within me that directs me to such actions contrary to my sensitive appetite there must be something above me therefore that put this principle into mans nature If there were no superior I should be the supream Judge of good and evil Were I the Lord of that Law which doth oblige me I should find no contradiction within my self between reason and appetite 2. From the Transgression of this law of nature fears do arise in the Consciences of men Have we not known or heard of men struck by so deep a dart that could not be drawn out by the strength of men or appeased by the pleasure of the world and men crying out with horrour upon a death-bed of their past life when their fear hath come as a desolation and destruction as a whirlewind Prov. 1.27 And often in some sharp affliction the dust hath been blown off from mens Consciences which for a while hath obscured the writing of the law If men stand in awe of punishment there is then some superior to whom they are accountable If there were no God there were no punishment to fear What reason of any fear upon the dissolution of the knot between the Soul and body if there were not a God to punish and the Soul remained not in being to be punished How suddenly will Conscience work upon the appearance of an affliction rouze it self from sleep like an armed man and fly in a mans face before he is aware of it It will surprize the Hipocrites Isa. 38.14 It will bring to mind actions committed long ago and set them in order before the face as Gods deputy acting by his authority and Omniscience As God hath not left himself without a witness among the Creatures Acts 14.17 So he hath not left himself without a witness in a mans own breast 1. This operation of Conscience hath been universal No Nation hath been any more exempt from it than from reason Not a man but hath one time or other more or less smarted under the sting of it All over the world Conscience hath shot its darts It hath torn the hearts of Princes in the midst of their pleasures It hath not flattered them whom most men flatter nor feared to disturb their rest whom no man dares to provoke Judges have trembled on a Tribunal when Innocents have rejoyced in their condemnation The Iron bars upon Pharaohs Conscience were at last broke up and he acknowledged the Justice of God in all that he did Exod. 9.27 I have sinned the Lord is righteous and I and my people are wicked Had they been like Childish frights at the apprehension of bug-bears why hath not reason shaken them off But on the contrary the stronger reason grows the smarter those lashes are Groundless fears had been short liv'd Age and Judgement would have worn them off but they grow sharper with the growth of persons The Scripture informs us they have been of as ancient a date as the revolt of the first man Gen. 3.10 I was afraid saith Adam beecause I was naked which was an expectation of the Judgment of God All his posterity inherit his fears when God expresseth himself in any tokens of his Majesty and Providence in the world Every mans Conscience testifies that he is unlike what he ought to be according to that law engraven upon his heart In some indeed Conscience may be feared or dimmer or suppose some men may be devoid of Conscience shall it be denyed to be a thing belonging to the nature of Man Some Men have not their eyes yet the power of seeing the light is natural to Man and belongs to the
no more in mind of the Holiness of God and the Holiness of his Law 't is a troublesom thing for us to hear of it Let him be gone from us since he will not countenance our Vices and indulge our Crimes We would rather hear there is no God than you should tell us of a Holy one We are contrary to the Law when we wish it were not so exact and therefore contrary to the Holiness of God which set the stamp of Exactness and Righteousness upon it We think him Injurious to our Liberty when by his Precept he thwarts our Pleasure we wish it of another frame more mild more sutable to our Minds 'T is the same as if we should openly blame God for consulting with his own Righteousness and not with our Humors before he setled his Law that he should not have drawn it from the depths of his Righteous Nature but squar'd it to accommodate our Corruption This being the language of such Complaints is a reproving God because he would not be Unholy that we might be Unrighteous with Impunity Had the Divine Law been suted to our Corrupt state God must have been Unholy to have complied with his Rebellious Creature To charge the Law with rigidness either in Language or Practice is the highest contempt of Gods Holiness for it is an Implicit Wish that God were as defil'd polluted disorderly as our Corrupted Selves 10 The Holiness of God is injur'd Opinionatively 1. In the Opinion of Venial sins The Romanists divide Sins into Venial and Mortal Mortal are those which deserve Eternal Death Venial the lighter sort of Sins which rather deserve to be pardon'd than punish'd or if punish'd not with an Eternal but Temporal Punishment This Opinion hath no foundation in but is contrary to Scripture How can any Sin be in its own nature Venial when the due Wages of every Sin is death Rom. 6.23 and he who continues not in every thing that the Law commands falls under a Curse Gal. 3.10 'T is a mean thought of the Holiness and Majesty of God to imagine that any Sin which is against an Infinite Majesty and as Infinite a Purity both in the Nature of God and the Law of God should not be considered as infinitely hainous All Sins are Transgressions of the Eternal Law and in every one the Infinite Holiness of God is some way slighted 2. In the Opinion of Works of Supererogation That is such Works as are not commanded by God which yet have such a dignity and worth in their own nature that the Performers of them do not only merit at Gods hands for themselves but fill up a Treasure of Merits for others that come short of fulfilling the Precepts God hath enjoyn'd 'T is such a mean thought of Gods Holiness that the Jews in all the Charges brought against them in Scripture were never guilty of And if you consider what pitiful things they are which are within the compass of such Works you have sufficient reason to bewail the Ignorance of Man and the low esteem he hath of so glorious a Perfection The Whipping themselves often in a Week extraordinary Watchings Fastings Macerating their Bodies wearing a Capuchins Habit c. are pitiful things to give content to an Infinite Purity As if the Precept of God requir'd only the Inferiour degrees of Vertue and the Counsels the more high and excellent as if the Law of God which the Psalmist counts perfect †Psal 19.7 did not command all Good and forbid all Evil as if the Holiness of God had forgotten it self in the framing the Law and made it a scanty and defective Rule and the Righteousness of a Creature were not only able to make an Eternal Righteousness but surmount it As Man would be at first as knowing as God so some of his Posterity would be more holy than God set up a Wisdom against the Wisdom of God and a Purity above the Divine Purity Adam was not so presumptuous he intended no more than an equalling God in Knowledge but those would exceed him in Righteousness and not only presume to render a Satisfaction for themselves to the Holiness they have injur'd but to make a Purse for the supply of others that are Indigent that they may stand before the Tribunal of God with a Confidence in the Imaginary Righteousness of a Creature How horrible is it for those that come short of the Law of God themselves to think that they can have enough for a Loan to their Neighbours An unworthy Opinion 2. Information It may Inform us how great is our Fall from God and how distant we are from him View the Holiness of God and take a prospect of the Nature of Man and be astonished to see a Person created in the Divine Image degenerated into the Image of the Devil We are as far fallen from the Holiness of God which consists in a Hatred of Sin as the lowest Point of the Earth is from the highest Point of the Heavens The Devil is not more fallen from the rectitude of his Nature and likeness to God than we are and that we are not in the same condition with those Apostate Spirits is not from any thing in our Nature but from the Mediation of Christ upon which account God hath indulged in us a continuance of some Remainders of that which Satan is wholly deprived of We are departed from our Original Pattern we were created to live the life of God that is a life of Holiness but now we are alienated from the life of God * Eph. 4.18 and of a beautiful piece we are become deformed daub'd over with the most defiling Mud We work uncleaness with greediness according to our ability as Creatures as God doth work Holiness with affection and ardency according to his Infiniteness as Creator More distant we are from God by reason of Sin than the vilest Creature the most deform'd Toad or poysonous Serpent is from the highest and most glorious Angel By forsaking our Innocence we departed from God as our Original Copy The Apostle might well say Rom. 3.23 that by Sin we are come short of the glory of God Interpreters trouble themselves much about that place Man is come short of the glory of God that is of the Holiness of God which is the glory of the Divine Nature and was pictur'd in the Rational Innocent Creature By the Glory of God is meant the Holiness of God As 1 Cor. 3.18 Beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord we are changed into the same Image from glory to glory that is the Glory of God in the Text into the Image of which we are changed but the Scripture speaks of no other Image of God but that of Holiness We are come short of the glory of God of the Holiness of God which is the glory of God and the Image of it which was the glory of Man By Sin which is particular in opposition to the Purity of God Man was left
according to God's order Ezek. 37.24 25. David my servant shall be King over them and my servant David shall be their Prince for ever He shall be a Prince over them but my servant in that principality in the exercise and duration of it The Soveraignty of God is paramount in all that Christ hath done as a Priest or shall do as a King The VSE 1. For Instruction 1. How great is the contempt of this soveraignty of God Man naturally would be free from Gods Empire to be a slave under the Dominion of his own lust The soveraignty of God as a Law-giver is most abhorr'd by man Levit. 26.43 The Israelites the best people in the World were apt by nature not only to despise but abhorre his Statutes There is not a Law of God but the corrupt heart of man hath an abhorrency of How often do men wish that God had not enacted this or that Law that goes against the grain and in wishing so wish that he were no soveraign or not such a soveraign as he is in his own â—â—ture but one according to their corrupt model This is the great quarrel between God and Man whither he or they shall be the soveraign Ruler He should not by the Will of Man rule in any one Village in the World Gods vote should not be predominant in any one thing There is not a Law of his but is expos'd to contempt by the perverseness of Man Prov. 1.21 Ye have set at nought all my Counsel and would have none of my reproof Septuag Ye have made all my Counsels without Authority The nature of man cannot endure one precept of God nor one rebuke from him And for this cause God is at the expence of Judgements in the World to assert his own Empire to the Teeth and Consciences of men Psal 59.13 Lord consume them in wrath and let them know that God rules in Jacob to the ends of the Earth The Dominion of God is not slighted by any Creature of this World but Man all others observe it by observing his Order whither in their natural motions or preternaral irruptions they punctually act according to their Commission Man only speaks a Dialect against the strain of the whole Creation and hath none to imitate him among all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth but only among those in Hell Man is more impatient of the yoke of God than of the yoke of Man There are not so many rebellions committed by inferiors against their superiors and fellow Creatures as are committed against God A willing and easie sinning is an equalling the Authority of God to that of Man Hos 6.7 They like men have transgrest my Covenant * Munster They have made no more account of breaking my Covenant than if they had broken some league or compact made with a meer man so slightly do they esteem the Authority of God Such a disesteem of the divine Authority is a vertual undeifying of him To slight his soveraignty is to stab his Deity Since the one cannot be preserved without the support of the other his life would expire with his Authority How base and brutish is it for vile dust and mouldring clay to lift up it self against the Majesty of God whose Throne is in the Heavens who sways his Scepter over all parts of the World A Majesty before whom the Devils shake and the highest Cherubims tremble 'T is as if the Thistle that can presently be trod down by the foot of a wild Beast should think it self a match for the Cedar of Lebanon as the phrase is 2 Kings 14.9 Let us consider this in general and also in the ordinary practise of men First In General 1. All sin in its nature is a contempt of the Divine Dominion As every act of Obedience is a confirmation of the Law and consequently a subscription to the Authority of the Lawgiver Deut 27.26 so every breach to it is a conspiracy against the soveraignty of the Law-giver setting up our Will against the Will of God is an Articling against his Authority as setting up our reason against the methods of God is an Articling against his Wisdom the intendment of every act of sin is to wrest the Scepter out of God's hand The Authority of God is the first attribute in the Deity which it directs its edge against 't is called therefore a transgression of his Law 1 John 3.4 And therefore a slight or neglect of the Majesty of God and the not keeping his Commands is call'd a forgetting God Deut. 8.11 i. e. a forgetting him to be our absolute Lord. As the first notion we have of God as a Creator is that of his Soveraignty so the first perfection that sin struck at in the violation of the Law was his soveraignty as a Lawgiver Breaking the Law is a dishonouring God Rom. 2.23 a Snatching off his Crown to obey our own Wills before the Will of God is to preferre our selves as our own Soveraigns before him Sin is a wrong and injury to God not in his Essence that is above the reach of a Creature nor in any thing profitable to him or pertaining to his own intrinsick advantage not an injury to God in himself but in his Authority in those things which pertain to his Glory a disowning his due right and not using his goods according to his will Thus the whole world may be call'd as God calls Chaldea a Land of Rebels Jer. 50.21 Go up against the Land of Merathaim or Rebels Rebels not against the Jews but against God The mighty opposition in the heart of man to the Supremacy of God is discovered Emphatically by the Apostle Rom. 8.7 in that expression The carnal mind is enmity against God i. e. against the Authority of God because it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be It refuseth not subjection to this or that part but to the whole to every mark of Divine Authority in it it will not lay down its arms against it nay it cannot but stand upon its terms against it the Law can no more be fulfill'd by a carnal mind than it can be disowned by a soveraign God God is so Holy that he cannot alter a Righteous Law and man is so averse that he cares not for nay cannot fulfil one Tittle so much doth the Nature of man swell against the Majesty of God Now an enmity to the Law which is in every sin implies a perversity against the Authority of God that enacted it 2. All sin in its nature is the despoyling God of his sole soveraignty which was probably the first thing the Devil aim'd at That pride was the sin of the Devil the Scripture gives us some account of when the Apostle adviseth not a novice or one that hath but lately embraced the Faith to be chosen a Bishop 1 Tim. 3.6 Least being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil Least he fall into the same sin for
must be utterly deposed Now it is difficult to leave a Law beloved for a Law long agoe discarded The mind of man will hunt after any thing the will of man embrace any thing upon the proposal of mean Objects the Spirit of man spreads its wings flyes to catch them becomes one with them But attempt to bring it under the Power of God the wings flag the Creature looks liveless as though there were no spring of motion in it 'T is as much crucified to God as the holy Apostle was to the world The sin of the heart discovers its strength the more God discovers the holiness of his Will * Rom. 7.9 10 11 12. The love of Sin hath been predominant in our Nature has quasht a love to God if not extinguisht it Hence also is the difficulty of Mortification This is a work tending to the honour of God the abasing of that inordinatley aspiring humour in our selves If the Nature of Man be inclin'd to Sin as it is it must needs be bent against any thing that opposes it 'T is impossible to strike any true blow at any Lust till the true Sense of God be re-entertained in the Soyl where it ought to grow Who can be naturally willing to crucifie what is incorporated with him his flesh what is dearest to him himself Is it an easie thing for man the Competitor with God to turn his Arms against himself that self should overthrow its own Empire lay aside all its pretensions to and designs for a God-head to hew off its own members and subdue its own affections 'T is the Nature of Man to cover his sin to hide it in his bosom * Job 13.33 If I cover my Transgression as Adam not to destroy it and as unwillingly part with his carnal affections as the Legion of Devils were with the man that had been long possessed And when he is forced and fired from one he will endeavour to espouse some other Lust as those Devils desired to possess Swine when they were chased from their possession of that man 5. Here we see the reason of unbelief That which hath most of God in it meets with most aversion from us That which hath least of God finds better and stronger inclinations in us What is the reason that the heart of Man is more unwilling to embrace the Gospel than acknowledge the equity of the Law Because there is more of Gods Nature and perfection evident in the Gospel than in the Law Besides there is more reliance on God and distance from self commanded in the Gospel The Law puts a man upon his own strength the Gospel takes him off from his own bottom The Law acknowledges him to have a power in himself and to act for his own reward the Gospel strips him of all his proud and towring thoughts * 2 Cor. 10.5 brings him to his due place the foot of God orders him to deny himself as his own Rule Righteousness and End and henceforth not to live to himself * 2 Cor. 5.15 This is the true reason why men are more against the Gospel than against the Law because it doth more deify God and debase Man Hence it is easier to reduce men to some Moral Vertue than to Faith to make men blush at their outward Vices but not at the inward impurity of their Natures Hence it is observed that those that asserted that all happiness did arise from something in a mans self as the Stoicks and Epicureans did and that a wise man was equal with God were greater Enemies to the truths of the Gospel than others Acts 17.18 because it lays the Ax to the root of their principal Opinion Takes the one from their self-sufficiency and the other from their self-gratification It opposeth the brutish principle of the one which placed happiness in the pleasures of the body and the more noble principle of the other which placed happiness in the vertue of the mind The one was for a sensual the other for a moral self both disowned by the Doctrin of the Gospel 6. It informs us consequently who can be the Author of Grace and Conversion and every other good Work No practical Atheist ever yet turned to God but was turned by God and not to acknowledge it to God is a part of this Atheism since it is a robbing God of the honour of one of his most glorious Works If this practical Atheism be natural to man ever since the first taint of Nature in Paradice what can be expected from it but a resisting of the work of God and setting up all the forces of Nature against the operations of Grace till a day of power dawn and clear up upon the Soul * Psal 110.3 Not all the Angels in Heaven or men upon Earth can be imagined to be able to perswade a Man to fall out with himself Nothing can turn the Tide of Nature but a Power above Nature God took away the sanctifying Spirit from man as a Penalty for the first sin Who can regain it but by his Will and Pleasure Who can restore it but he that remov'd it Since every man hath the same fundamental Atheism in him by Nature and would be a Rule to himself and his own End he is so far from dethroning himself that all the strength of his corrupted Nature is alarm'd up to stand to their Arms upon any attempt God makes to regain the Fort. The Will is so strong against God that 't is like many wills twisted together Eph. 2.3 Wills of the Flesh we translate it the desires of the flesh Like many Threds twisted in a Cable never to be snapt asunder by a human Arm a Power and Will above ours can only untwist so many Wills in a knot Man cannot rise to an acknowledgement of God without God Hell may as well become Heaven the Devil be changed into an Angel of Light The Devil cannot but desire happiness he knows the misery into which he is fallen he cannot be desirous of that punishment he knows is reserved for him Why doth he not sanctifie God and glorifie his Creator wherein there is abundantly more pleasure than in his malicious course Why doth he not petition to recover his ancient standing He will not there are Chains of Darkness upon his faculties he will not be otherwise than he is His desire to be God of the World sways him against his own interest and out of love to his malice he will not sin at a less rate to make a diminution of his punishment Man if God utterly refuseth to work upon him is no better and to maintain his Atheism would venture a Hell How is it possible for a man to turn himself to that God against whom he hath a quarrel in his Nature the most rooted and settled habit in him being to set himself in the place of God An Atheist by Nature can no more alter his own temper and engrave in himself the Divine Nature
Zech. 4.1 The Angel that talked with me came again and awaked me as a man is awaked out of sleep He had been rouzed up before but he was ready to drop down again his heart was gone till the Angel jogged him We may complain of such imaginations as Jerem. doth of the Enemies of the Jews * Lam. 4.19 Our Persecutors are swifter than Eagles they light upon us with as much speed as Eagles upon a Carcass they pursue us upon the Mountain of Divine institutions and they lay wait for us in the Wilderness in our retired addresses to God And this will be so while 1. There is natural corruption in us There are in a Godly man two contrary principles Flesh and Spirit which endeavour to hinder one anothers acts and are alway stirring upon the offensive or defensive part * Gal. 5.17 There is a body of death continually exhaling its noysom vapours 'T is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures it snaps our resolutions asunder * Rom. 7.19 it hinders us in the doing good and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil This corruption being seated in all the faculties and a constant Domestick in them has the greater opportunity to trouble us since it is by those faculties that we spiritually transact with God and it stirs more in the time of religious exercises though it be in part mortified As a wounded Beast though tired will rage and strive to its utmost when the Enemy is about to fetch a blow at it All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend it self and offend us when we have our Arms in our hands to mortifie it that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it The Apostles had aspiring thoughts and being perswaded of an earthly Kingdom expected a Grandeur in it And though we find some appearance of it at other times as when they were casting out Devils and gave an account of it to their Master he gives them a kind of a check * Luke 10.20 intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoycing upon that account Yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest * Luke 22.24 until they had the most solemn Ordinance the Lords Supper to quell it* Our corruption is like Lime which discovers not its fire by any smoke or heat till you cast water the Enemy of fire upon it Neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we are using means to quench and destroy it 2. While there is a Devil and we in his Precinct As he accuseth us to God so he disturbs us in our selves He is a bold Spirit and loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God We read that when the Angels presented themselves before God Satan comes among them * Job 1.6 Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and Angelical frames He loves to take off the edge of our Spirits from God He acts but after the old rate He from the first envied God an obedience from man and envied man the felicity of communion with God He is unwilling God should have the honour of worship and that we should have the fruit of it He hath himself lost it and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it and being subtil he knows how to make impressions upon us sutable to our inbred corruptions and assault us in the weakest part He knows all the avenues to get within us as he did in the temptation of Eve and being a Spirit he wants not a power to dart them immediatly upon our fancy And being a Spirit and therefore active and nimble he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off He is diligent also and watcheth for his Prey and seeks to devour our services as well as our Souls and snatch our best morsels from us We know he mixed himself with our Saviours retirements in the Wilderness and endeavoured to Fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his mediatory work Satan is Gods Ape and imitates the Spirit in the Office of a Remembrancer As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind to quicken our worship so the Devil brings evil things to mind and endeavours to fasten them in our Souls to disturb us And though all the foolish starts we have in worship are not purely his issue yet being of kin to him he claps his hands and sets them on like so many Mastives to tear the service in pieces And both those distractions which arise from our own corruption and from Satan are most rise in worship when we are under some pressing affliction This seems to be David's Case Psal 86. when in v. 11. He prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship his Name he seems to be under some affliction or fear of his Enemies Oh free me from those distractions of Spirit and those passions which arise in my Soul upon considering the designs of my enemies against me and press upon me in my addresses to thee and attendances on thee Job also in his affliction complains Job 17.11 That his purposes were broken off He could not make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions they were frequently snapt saunder like rotten Yarn when one is winding it up Good Men and spiritual Worshippers have lain under this trouble Though they are a sign of weakness of grace or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace What ariseth from our own corruption is to be matter of humiliation and resistance what ariseth from Satan should edge our minds to a noble conquest of them If the Apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what rose from the natural spring of sin within him with his consent to the Law and dissent from his Lust and charges it not upon himself but upon the sin that dwelt in him with which he had broken off the former League and was resolved never to enter into Amity with it By the same reason we may comfort our selves if such thoughts are undelighted in and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busie intrusions to interrupt us 2. These distractions not allowed may be occasions by an holy improvement to make our hearts more spiritual after worship though they disturb us in it By answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits them to invade us And that is 1. When they are occasions to humble us 1. For our carriage in the particular worship There is nothing so dangerous as spiritual pride It deprived Devils and Men of the presence of God and will hinder us of the influence of God If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship we should be apt to be lifted
before it was Immense before it had no bounds and would God make a World that he would be ashamed to be present with and continue it to the diminution and lessening of himself rather than annihilate it to avoid the disparagement This were to impeach the Wisdom of God and cast a blemish upon his infinite Understanding that he knows not the consequences of his Work or is well contented to be impaired in the immensity of his own Essence by it No man thinks it a dishonour to Light a most excellent Creature to be present with a Toad or Serpent and tho' there be an infinite disproportion between Light a Creature and the Father of Lights the Creator Yet * Gassend God being a Spirit knows how to be with Bodies as if they were not Bodies And being jealous of his own Honor would not could not do any thing that might impair it 4. Nor will it follow That because God is Essentially every where that every thing is God God is not every where by any conjunction composition or mixture with any thing on Earth when Light is in every part of a Chrystal Globe and encircles it close on every side do they become one No the Chrystal remains what it is and the Light retains its own nature God is not in us as a part of us but as an efficient and preserving Cause 't is not by his Essential Presence but his efficacious Presence that he brings any person into a likeness to his own Nature God is so in his Essence with things as to be distinct from them as a Cause from the Effect as a Creator different from the Creature preserving their Nature not communicating his own his Essence touches all is in conjunction with none Finite and Infinite cannot be joyn'd he is not far from us therefore near to us so near that we live and move in him * Acts 17.27 Nothing is God because it moves in him any more than a Fish in the Sea is the Sea or a part of the Sea because it moves in it Doth a man that holds a thing in the hollow of his hand Amyrald de Trinit p. 99. 100. transform it by that action and make it like his hand The Soul and Body are more straitly united than the Essence of God is by his Presence with any Creature The Soul is in the Body as a form in matter and from their Union doth arise a man yet in this near conjunction both Body and Soul remain distinct the Soul is not the Body nor the Body the Soul they both have distinct natures and essences the Body can never be changed into a Soul nor the Soul into a Body no more can God into the Creature or the Creature into God Fire is in heated Iron in every part of it so that it seems to be nothing but Fire yet is not Fire and Iron the same thing But such a kind of arguing against Gods Omnipresence that if God were Essentially present every thing would be God would exclude him from Heaven as well as from Earth By the same reason since they acknowledge God essentially in Heaven the Heaven where he is should be chang'd into the nature of God and by arguing against his Presence in Earth upon this ground they run such an inconvenience that they must own him to be no where and that which is no where is nothing Doth the Earth become God because God is Essentially there any more than the Heavens where God is acknowledged by all to be Essentially present Again if where God is Essentially that must be God then if they place God in a Point of the Heavens not only that Point must be God but all the World because if that point be God because God is there then the Point touched by that Point must be God and so consequently as far as there are any Points touched by one another We live and move in God so we live and move in the Air we are no more God by that than we are meer Air because we breathe in it and it enters into all the Pores of our Body Nay where there was a straiter Union of the Divine Nature to the Humane in our Saviour yet the Nature of both was distinct and the Humanity was not chang'd into the Divinity nor the Divinity into the Humanity 5. Nor doth it follow that because God is every where therefore a Creature may be worshipt without Idolatry Some of the Heathens who acknowledged Gods Omnipresence abus'd it to the countenancing Idolatry because God was resident in every thing they thought every thing might be Worshipped and some have usd it as an Argument against this Doctrine the best Doctrines may by mens corruption be drawn out into unreasonable and pernicious conclusions Have you not met with any That from the Doctrine of Gods Free Mercy and our Saviours satisfactory Death have drawn Poyson to feed their Lusts and consume their Souls a Poyson compos'd by their own corruption and not offer'd by those Truths The Apostle intimates to us that some did or at least were ready to be more lavish in sinning because God was abundant in Grace Rom. 6.1 2.15 Shall we Sin because we are not under the Law but under Grace Shall we continue in Sin that Grace may abound when he prevents an Objection that he thought might be made by some But as to this Case since tho' God be present in every thing yet every thing retains its nature distinct from the Nature of God therefore it is not to have a Worship due to the Excellency of God As long as any thing remains a Creature 't is only to have the respect from us which is due to it in the rank of Creatures When a Prince is present with his Guard or if he should go Arm in Arm with a Peasant is therefore the Veneration and Honor due to the Prince to be paid to the Peasant or any of his Guard would the Presence of the Prince excuse it or would it not rather aggravate it he acknowledged such a person equal to me by giving him my Rights even in my Sight Tho' God dwelt in the Temple would not the Israelites have been accounted guilty of Idolatry had they Worshipped the Images of the Cherubims or the Ark or the Altar as objects of Worship which were erected only as means for his Service Is there not as much reason to think God was as Essentially present in the Temple as in Heaven since the same Expressions are used of the one and the other the Sanctuary is called the Glorious High Throne * Jer. 17.13 and he is said to dwell between the Cherubims †Psal 80.1 i. e. the two Cherubims that were at the two ends of the Mercy Seat appointed by God as the two sides of his Throne in the Sanctuary Exod. 25.18 where he was to dwell ver 8. and meet and commune with his people ver 22. Could this excuse Manasseh's Idolatry
value and virtue of the Redeemers Merit which God from the beginning intended to magnifie The Value of it in taking off so much successive Guilt and the Virtue of it in washing away so much daily filth Th◠Wisdom of God hereby keeps up the Credit of Imputed Righteousness and manifests the Immense Treasure of the Redeemers Merit to pay such daily Debts Were we perfectly Sanctified we should stand upon our own Bottom and imagine no need of the continual and repeated Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ for our Justification We should confide in Inherent Righteousness and slight Imputed If God should take off all Remainders of Sin as well as the Guilt of it we should be apt to forget that we are Fallen Creatures and that we had a Redeemer But the Reliques of Sin in us mind us of the necessity of some higher strength to set us right They mind us both of our own Misery and the Redeemers perpetual benefit God by this keeps up the Dignity and Honour of our Saviours Blood to the height and therefore sometimes lets us see to our own cost what filth yet remains in us for the employment of that Blood which we should else but little think of and less admire Our Gratitude is so small to God as well as Man that the first Obligations are soon forgot if we stand not in need of fresh ones successively to second them we should lose our Thankful Remembrance of the first virtue of Christs Blood in washing us if our Infirmities did not mind us of fresh Reiterations and Applications of it Ours Saviours Office of Advocacy was erected especially for Sins committed after a Justified and Renewed state * 1 John 2.1 We should scarce remember we had an Advocate and scarce make use of him without some sensible Necessity but our Remainders of Sin discover our Impotency and an impossibility for us either to expiate our Sin or conform to the Law which necessitates us to have recourse to that Person whom God hath appointed to make up the breaches between God and us So the Apostle wraps up himself in the Covenant of Grace and his Interest in Christ after his conflict with Sin Rom. 7. ult I thank God through Jesus Christ Now after such a Body of Death a Principle within me that sends up daily steams yet as long as I serve God with my Mind as long as I keep the main Condition of the Covenant there is no Condemnation †Rom. 8.1 Christ takes my part procures my acceptance and holds the Band of Salvation firm in his hands The brightness of Christs Grace is set off by the darkness of our Sin We should not understand the Soveraignty of his Medicines if there were no Reliques of Sin for him to exercise his Skill upon The Physicians Art is most experimented and therefore most valued in Relapses as dangerous as the former Disease As the Wisdom of God brought our Saviour into Temptation that he might have Compassion to us so it permits us to be overcome by Temptation that we might have due Valuations of him 3. God hereby often engageth the Soul to a greater Industry for his glory The highest Persecutors when they have become Converts have been the greatest Champions for that Cause they both hated and opprest The Apostle Paul is such an Instance of this that it needs no enlargement By how much they have failed of answering the end of their Creation in glorifying God by so much the more they summon up all their Force for such an end after their Conversion to restore as much as they can of that Glory to God which they by their Sin had robb'd him of Their Sins by the order of Divine Wisdom prove Whetstones to sharpen the edge of their Spirits for God Paul never remembred his Persecuting Fury but he doubled his Industry for the Service of God which before he trampled under his feet The further we go back the greater Leap many times we take forward Our Saviour after his Resurrection put Peter upon the exercise of that Love to him which had so lately shrunk his head out of Suffering ‖ Iohn 21.15 16 17. and no doubt but the consideration of his base Denial together with a reflection upon a gracious Pardon engag'd his Ingenuous Soul to stronger and fiercer flames of Affection A Believers Courage for God is more sharpned oftentimes by the shame of his Fall He endeavours to repair the faults of his Ingratitude and Disingenuity by larger and stronger steps of Obedience As a Man in a fight having been foil'd by his Enemy reassumes new Courage by his Fall and is many times oblig'd to his Foil both for his Spirit and his Victory A gracious Heart will upon the very motions to sin double its Vigor as well as by good ones It is usually more quickned both in its motion to God and for God by the Temptations and Motions to Sin which run upon it This is another Good the Wisdom of God brings forth from Sin 4. Again Humility towards God is another Good Divine Wisdom brings forth from the Occasion of Sin By this God beats down all good opinion or our selves Hezekiah was more humbled by his fall into Pride than by all the Distress he had been in by Senacharibs Army 2 Chron. 32.26 Peters Confidence before his Fall gave way to an humble Modesty after it You see his Confidence Mark 14.24 Though all should be offended in thee yet will not I and you have the mark of his Modesty John 21.17 't is not then Lord I will love thee to the death I will not start from thee but Lord thou knowest that I love thee I cannot assure my self of any thing after this Miscarriage but Lord thou knowest there is a Principle of Love in me to thy Name He was asham'd that himself who appeared such a Pillar should bend as meanly as a Shrub to a Temptation The reflection upon Sin lays a Man as low as Hell in his Humiliation as the Commission of Sin did in the Merit When David comes to exercise Repentance for his Sin he begins it from the Well-head of Sin * Psal 51.5 his Original Corruption and draws down the streams of it to the last commission Perhaps he did not so seriously humble himself for the Sin of his Nature all his days so much as at that time at least we have not such Evidences of it And Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart not only for the Pride of his Act †2 Chron. 32.26 but for the Pride in the Heart which was the Spring of that Pride in Act in shewing his Treasures to the Babylonish Ambassadors God lets Sin continue in the Hearts of the best in this World and sometimes gives the Reins to Satan and a Man 's own Corruption to keep up a sense of the ancient Sale we made of our selves to both II. In regard of our selves Herein is the wonder of Divine
it They had curtail'd it and diminish'd part of its Authority cutting off its empire over the least Evil and left its power only to check the grosser Practises But Christ restores it to the due extent of its Soveraignty and shews it in those dimensions in which the Holy Men of God considered it as exceeding broad Psal 119.96 reaching to all Actions all Motions all Circumstances attending them full of inexhaustible Treasures of Righteousness And though this Law since the Fall doth irritate Sin 't is no disparagement but a Testimony to the Righteousness of it which the Apostle manifests by his Wherefore Rom. 7.8 Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence and repeating the same sense verse 11. subjoyns a Wherefore verse 12. Wherefore the Law is holy The rising of Mens sinful hearts against the Law of God when it strikes with its Preceptive and Minatory parts upon their Consciences evidenceth the Holiness of the Law and the Law-giver In its own Nature it is a Directing Rule but the malignant Nature of Sin is exasperated by it as an hostile quality in a Creature will awaken it self at the appearance of its Enemy The Purity of this Beam and Transcript of God bears witness to a greater clearness and beauty in the Sun and Original Undefiled Streams manifest an untainted Fountain 2. It is seen in the manner of its Precepts As it prescribes all Good and forbids all Evil so it doth enjoyn the one and banish the other as such The Laws of Men command Vertuous things not as Vertuous in themselves but as useful for Human Society which the Magistrate is the Conservator of and the Guardian of Justice ‖ Ames de Consc lib. 5 cap. 1. queâ—t â— The Laws of Men contain not all the Precepts of Vertue but only such as are accommodated to their Customes and are useful to preserve the Ligaments of their Government The design of them is not so much to render the Subjects good Men as good Citizens They order the Practise of those Vertues that may strengthen Civil Society and discountenance those Vices only which weaken the Sinews of it But God beâ—â—â— the Guardian of Vniversal Righteousness doth not only enact the Observance of all Righteousness but the observance of it as Righteousness He Commands that which is Just in it self enjoyns Vertues as Vertues and prohibits Vices as Vices as they are profitable or injurious to our selves as well as to Others Men command Temperance and Justice not as Vertues in themselves but as they prevent Disorder and Confusion in a Common Wealth And forbid Adultery and Theft not as Vices in themselves but as they are Intrenchments upon Property Not as hurtful to the Person that commits them but as hurtful to the Person against whose Right they are committed Upon this account perhaps Paul applauds the Holiness of the Law of God in regard of its own Nature as considered in it self more than he doth the Justice of it in regard of Man and the goodness and conveniency of it to the World Rom. 7.12 the Law is Holy twice and Just and Good but once 3. In the Spiritual extent of it The most Righteous Powers of the World do not so much regard in their Laws what the Inward Affections of their Subjects are The External Acts are only the Objects of their Decrees either to encourage them if they be useful or discourage them if they be hurtful to the Community And indeed they can do no other for they have no Power proportioned to Inward Affections since the Inward disposition falls not under their Censure and it would be foolish for any Legislative Power to make such Laws which it is impossible for it to put in Execution They can prohibit the Outward Acts of Theft and Murder but they cannot command the Love of God the Hatred of Sin the Contempt of the World they cannot prohibit Vnclean Thoughts and the Atheism of the Heart But the Law of God surmounts in Righteousness all the Laws of the best regulated Common Wealths in the World It restrains the Licentious Heart as well as the Violent Hand it damps the very first bubblings of Corrupt Nature orders a Purity in the Spring commands a clean Fountain clean Streams clean Vessels It would frame the Heart to an Inward as well as the Life to an Outward Righteousness and make the Inside purer than the Outside It forbids the first Belchings of a Murderous or Adulterous intention It obligeth Man as a Rational Creature and therefore exacts a conformity of every Rational Faculty and of whatsoever is under the Command of them It commands the Private Closet to be free from the least Cobweb as well as the Outward Porch to be clean from Mire and Dirt. It frowns upon all stains and pollutions of the most retired Thoughts Hence the Apostle calls it a Spiritual Law Rom. 7.14 as not Political but extending its force further than the Frontiers of the Man placing its Ensigns in the Metropolis of the Heart and Mind and curbing with its Scepter the Inward motions of the Spirit and commanding over the Secrets of every Mans Breast 4. In regard of the perpetuity of it The Purity and perpetuity of it are link'd together by the Psalmist Psal 19.9 The fear of the Lord is clean enduring for ever the Fear of the Lord that is that Law which commands the Fear and Worship of God and is the Rule of it And indeed God values it at such a rate that rather than part with a tittle or let the honour of it lie in the Dust he would not only let Heaven and Earth pass away but expose his Son to death for the reparation of the wrong it had sustain'd So holy it is that the Holiness and Righteousness of God cannot dispence with it cannot abrogate it without despoiling himself of his own Being 'T is a Copy of the Eternal Law Can he ever abrogate the command of Love to himself without shewing some contempt of his own Excellency and very Being Before he can enjoyn a Creature not to love him he must make himself unworthy of Love and worthy of Hatred this would be the highest Vnrighteousness to order us to hate that which is only worthy of our highest Affections †Suarez So God cannot change the first Command and order us to worship many Gods this would be against the Excellency and Unity of God For God cannot constitute another God or make any thing worthy of an Honour equal with himself Those things that are good only because they are Commanded are alterable by God Those things that are intrinsically and essentially Good and therefore Commanded are unalterable as long as the Holiness and Righteousness of God stand firm The intrinsick Goodness of the Moral Law the concern God hath for it thâ— perpetuity of the Precepts of the first Table and the care he hath had to imprint the Precepts of the Second upon the
many Leagues behind any resemblance to God he stript off that which was the glory of his Nature and was the only means of glorifying God as his Creator The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle uses is very significant Postpon'd by Sin an infinite distance from any imitation of Gods Holiness or any appearance before him in a garb of Nature pleasing to him Let us lament our Fall and distance from God 3. Information All Vnholiness is vile and opposite to the Nature of God 'T is such a loathsom thing that the Purity of Gods eye is averse from beholding Hab. 1.3 'T is not said there that he will not but he cannot look on Evil there cannot be any amicableness between God and Sin the Natures of both are so directly and unchangeably contrary to one another Holiness is the Life of God it endures as long as his Life He must be Eternally averse from Sin he can live no longer than he lives in the hatred and loathing of it If he should for one instant cease to hate it he would cease to live To be a Holy God is as Essential to him as to be a Living God and he would not be a living but a dead God if he were in the least point of Time an Unholy God He cannot look on Sin without loathing it he cannot look on Sin but his Heart riseth against it It must needs be most odious to him as that which is against the glory of his Nature and directly opposite to that which is the lustre and varnish of all his other Perfections 'T is the Abominable thing which his Soul hates Jer. 44.4 the vilest terms imaginable are used to signifie it Do you understand the loathsomness of a miry Swine or the nauseousness of the vomit of a Dog These are Emblems of Sin †2 Pet. 2.22 Can you endure the steams of putrified Carkasses from an open Sepulchre * Rom. 3.23 Is the smell of the stinking sweat or Excrements of a Body delightful the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in James 1.21 signifies as much Or is the sight of a Body overgrown with Scabs and Leprosie grateful to you So vile so odious is Sin in the sight of God 'T is no light thing then to fly in the Face of God to break his Eternal Law to dash both the Tables in pieces to trample the Transcript of Gods own Nature under our feet to cherish that which is inconsistent with his Honour to lift up our heels against the glory of his Nature to joyn Issue with the Devil in stabbing his Heart and depriving him of his life Sin in every part of it is an opposition to the Holiness of God and consequently an envying him a Being and Life as well as a Glory If Sin be such a thing ye that love the Lord hate Evil. 4. Information Sin cannot escape a due Punishment A hatred of Unrighteousness and consequently a will to punish it is as Essential to God as a love of Righteousness Since he is not as an Heathen Idol but hath Eyes to see and Purity to hate every Iniquity he will have an Infinite Justice to punish whatsoever is against Infinite Holiness As he loves every thing that is amiable so he loaths every thing that is filthy and that constantly without any change his whole Nature is set against it he abhors nothing but this 'T is not the Devils knowledge or activity that his Hatred is terminated in but the Malice and Unholiness of his Nature 't is this only is the Object of his Severity 'T is in the recompence of this only that there can be a manifestation of his Justice Sin must be punish'd for 1. This Detestation of Sin must be manifested How should we certainly know his loathing of it if he did not manifest by some act how ungrateful it is to him As his love to Righteousness would not appear without rewarding it so his hatred of Iniquity would be as little evidenc'd without punishing it His Justice is the great Witness to his Purity The Punishment therefore inflicted on the Wicked shall be in some respect as great as the Rewards bestow'd upon the Righteous Since the hatred of Sin is natural to God 't is as natural to him to shew one time or other his hatred of it And since Men have a conceit that God is like them in Impurity there is a necessity of some manifestation of himself to be Infinâ—tely distant from those Conceits they have of him Psal 50.21 I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes He would else encourage the Injuries done to his Holiness favour the Extravagances of the Creature and condemn or at least slight the Righteousness both of his own Nature and his Soveraign Law What way is there for God to manifest this Hatred but by Threatning the Sinner and what would this be but a vain Affrightment and ridiculous to the Sinner if it were never to be put in execution There is an indissoluble connexion between his Hatred of Sin and Punishment of the Offender Psal 11.5 6. The wicked his Soul hates Vpon the wicked he shall rain snares fire and brimstone c. He cannot approve of it without denying himself and a total Impunity would be a degree of Approbation The Displeasure of God is Eternal and Irreconcileable against Sin for Sin being absolutely contrary to his holy Nature He is Eternally contrary to it If there be not therefore a way to separate the Sin from the Sinner the Sinner must lie under the Displeasure of God no displeasure can be manifested without some marks of it upon the Person that lies under that Displeasure The Holiness of God will right it self of the wrongs done to it and scatter the Prophaners of it at the greatest distance from him which is the greatest Punishment that can be inflicted to be removed far from the Fountain of Life is the worst of Deaths God can as soon lay aside his Purity as always forbear his Displeasure against an Impure Person 't is all one not to hate it and not to manifest his Hatred of it 2. As his Holiness is natural and necessary so is the punishment of Vnholiness necessary to him 'T is necessary that he should abominate Sin and therefore necessary he should discountenance it The Severities of God against Sin are not vain Scare-crows they have their foundation in the Righteousness of his Nature 't is because he is a Righteous and Holy God that he will not forgive our Transgressions and Sins Josh 24.19 that is that he will punish them The Throne of his Holiness is a fiery flame Dan. 7.9 there is both a pure light and a scorching heat Whatsoever is contrary to the Nature of God will fall under the Justice of God he would else violate his own Nature deny his own Perfection seem to be out of love with his own Glory and Life He doth not hate it out of choice but from the
His Grace would have Crown'd that which had been so agreeable to him He had been a denier of himself had he numbred Innocent Creatures in the Rank of the Miserable But to be kind to an Enemy To run Counter to the vastness of Demerit in Man was a Superlative Goodness a Goodness triumphing above all the provocations of Men and Pleas of Justice It was an abounding Goodness of Grace * Rom. 5.20 Where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It swell'd above the heights of Sin and triumphed more than all his other Attributes 4. Man was reduced to the lowest Condition Our Crimes had brought us to the lowest Calamity we were brought to the dust and prepar'd for Hell Adam had not the boldness to Request and therefore we may Judge he had not the least hopes of Pardon he was sunk under Wrath and could have expected no better an Entertainment than the Tempter whose sollicitations he submitted to We had cast the Diadem from our heads and lost all our Original Excellency We were lost to our own Happiness and lost to our Creators Service when he was so kind as to send his Son to seek us Matth. 18.11 and so liberal as to expend his Blood for our cure and preservation How great was that Goodness that would not abandon us in our Misery but remit our Crimes and rescue our Persons and ransom our Souls by so great a Price from the Rights of Justice and horrors of Hell we were so fitted for 5. Every Age multiplied Provocations Every Age of the World proved more degenerate The Traditions which were purer and more lively among Adams immediate Posterity were more dark among his further Descendants Idolatry whereof we have no Marks in the old World before the Deluge was frequent afterwards in every Nation Not only the knowledge of the true God was lost but the Natural Reverential thoughts of a Deity were expelled Hence Gods were dubb'd according to Mens humors and not only Human Passions but Brutish Vices ascrib'd to them As by the Fall we were become less than Men so we would fancy God no better than a Beast since Beasts were Worshipped as Gods * Rom. 1.21 yea fancied God no better than a Devil since that Destroyer was Worshipped instead of the Creator and a Homage paid to the Powers of Hell that had ruin'd them which was due to the Goodness of that Benefactor who had made them and preserved them in the World The vilest Creatures were Deifi'd Reason was debas'd below Common Sense And Men ador'd one end of a Log while they warmed themselves with the other †Isai 44.14.16 17. as if that which was Ordain'd for the Kitchin were a fit Representation for God in the Temple Thus were the Natural Notions of a Deity deprav'd the whole World drencht in Idolatry And though the Jews were free from that gross abuse of God yet they were sunk also into loathsom Superstitions when the Goodness of God brought in his design'd Redeemer and Redemption into the World 6. The impotence of Man enhanceth this Goodness Our own Eye did scarce pity us and it was impossible for our own hands to relieve us we were insensible of our Misery in love with our Death we courted our Chains and the noise of our fettering Lusts were our Musick * Tit. 3.3 serving diverse Lusts and Pleasures Our Lusts were our Pleasures Satans Yoke was as del ghtful to us to bear as to him to impose Instead of being his Opposers in his attempts against us we were his voluntary Seconds and every whit as willing to embrace as he was to propose his Ruining Temptations As no Man can recover himself from Death so no Man can recover himself from Wrath he is as unable to Redeem as to Create himself he might as soon have stript himself of his being as put an end to his Misery his Captivity would have been endless and his Chains remediless for any thing he could do to knock them off and deliver himself he was too much in love with the Sink of Sin to leave wallowing in it and under too powerful a hand to cease frying in the Flames of Wrath. As the Law could not be obeyed by Man after a corrupt Principle had enter'd into him so neither could Justice be satisfied by him after his Transgression The Sinner was indebted but Bankrupt As he was unable to pay a Mite of that Obedience he owed to the Precept because of his enmity so he was unable to satisfie what he owed to the Penalty because of his Feebleness He was as much without love to observe the one as without strength to bear the other †Rom. 8.7 He could not because of his Enmity be subject to the Law or compensate for his Sin because he was * Rom. 5.6 without strength His strength to offend was great but to deliver himself a meer nothing Repentance was not a thing known by Man after the fall till he had hopes of Redemption and if he had known and exercised it what compensation are the Tears of a Malefactor for an injury done to the Crown and attempting the life of his Prince How great was Divine Goodness not only to pity Men in this State but to provide a strong Redeemer for them Oh Lord my Strength and my Redeemer said the Psalmist †Psal 19 1◠When he found out a Redeemer for our Misery he found out a Strength for our Impotency To conclude this Behold the Goodness of God when we had thus unhandsomely dealt with him had nothing to allure his Goodness Multitudes of Provocations to incense him were reduced to a conditon as low as could be fit to be the Matter of his Scoffs and the Sport of Divine Justice and so weak that we could not repair our own Ruines then did he open a Fountain of fresh Goodness in the Death of his Son and sent forth such delightful Streams as in our Original Creation we could never have tasted Not only overcame the Resentments of a Provoked Justice but magnified it self by our lowness and strengthned it self by our weakness His Goodness had before Created an Innocent but here it saves a Malefactor and sends his Son to die for us as if the Holy of Holies were the Criminal and the Rebel the Innocent It had been a pompous Goodness to have given him as a King but a Goodness of greater grandeur to expose him as a Sacrifice for Slaves and Enemies Had Adam remain'd Innocent and proved thankful for what he had received it had been great Goodness to have brought him to glory But to bring filthy and rebellious Adam to it surmounts by unexpressible degrees that sort of Goodness he had experimented before Since it was not from a light Evil a tolerable Curse unawares brought upon us but from the Yoke we had willingly submitted to from the power of darkness we had courted and the furnace of wrath we had kindled
the Moral Law was publisht had been a vain exhortation had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all Ages 2. The dominion of God is manifest in the extent of his Laws As he is the Governour and Soveraign of the whole World so he Enacts Laws for the whole World One Prince cannot make Laws for another unless he makes him his Subject by right of conquest Spain cannot make Laws for England or England for Spain But God having the supream Government as King over all is a Lawgiver to all to irrational as well as rational Creatures The Heavens have their Ordinances Job 38.33 All Creatures have a Law imprinted on their beings Rational Creatures have Divine Statutes Copied in their heart For men it is clear Rom. 2.14 Every Son of Adam at his coming into the World brings with him a Law in his nature and when reason clears it self up from the Clouds of sence he can make some difference between Good and Evil discern something of fit and just Every man finds a Law within him that checks him if he offends it Noâ—◠〈◊〉 without a legal indictment and a legal Executioner within them God 〈…〉 was the Author of this as a Soveraign Lord in establishing a Law iâ— man at the same time wherein as an Almighty Creator he imparted a being This Law proceeds from God's general power of governing as he is the Author of nature and binds not barely as it is the reason of man but by the Authority of God as it is a Law engraven on his Conscience And no doubt but a Law was given to the Angels God did not Govern those intellectual Creatures as he doth brutes and in a way inferior to his rule of Man Some sinned all might have sinned in regard of the changeableness of their nature Sin cannot be but against some rule Where there is no Law there is no Transgression what that Law was is not reveal'd but certainly it must be the same in part with the Moral Law so far as it agreed with their spiritual natures a love to God a Worship of him and a love to one another in their Societies and Persons 3. The dominion of God is manifest in the reason of some Laws which seem to be nothing else than purely his own Will Some Laws there are for which a reason may be rendered from the nature of the thing enjoyned as to Love Honour and Worship God For others none but this God will have it so such was that positive Law to Adam of not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Gen. 2.17 which was meerly an asserting his own dominion and was different from that Law of Nature God had written in his heart No other reason of this seems to us but a resolve to try mans Obedience in away of absolute Soveraignty and to manifest his right over all Creatures to reserve what he pleased to himself and permit the use of what he pleased to man and to signifie to man that he was to depend on him who was his Lord and not on his own will There was no more hurt in it self for Adam to have eaten of that than of any other in the Garden the Fruit was pleasant to the Eye and Good for Food but God would shew the right he had over his own goods and his Authority over man to reserve what he pleases of his own Creation from his touch that since man could not claim a propriety in any thing he was to meddle with nothing but by the leave of his Soveraign either discovered by a special or general License Thus God shewed himself the Lord of Man and that man was but his Steward to act by his Orders If God had forbidden man the use of more Trees in the Garden his command had been just Since as a Soveraign Lord he might dispose of his own Goods and when he had granted him the whole compass of that pleasant Garden and the whole World round about for him and his posterity it was a more tolerable exercise of his dominion to reserve this one Tree as a mark of his Soveraignty when he had left all others to the use of Adam He reserv'd nothing to himself as Lord of the Manour but this and Adam was prohibited nothing else but this one as a sign of his subjection Now for this no reason can be rendered by any man but meerly the Will of God this was meerly a fruit of his Dominion For the moral Laws a reason may be rendred to Love God hath reason to enforce it besides Gods Will viz. The Excellency of his Nature and the greatness and multitudes of his benefits To love our Neighbour hath enforcing reasons viz. the Conjunction in blood and the preservation of humane Society and the need we may stand in of their love our selves But no reason can be assign'd of this positive command about the Tree of knowledge of good and evil but meerly the pleasure of God It was a branch of his pure dominion to try mans Obedience and a mark of his Goodness to try it by so easie and light a precept when he might have extended his Authority further Had not God given this or the like order his absolute dominion had not been so conspicuous 'T is true Adam had a Law of Nature in him whereby he was obliged to perpetual Obedience and though it was a part of God's dominion to implant it in him yet his supream dominion over the Creatures had not been so visible to man but by this or a precept of the same kind What was commanded or prohibited by the Law of Nature did bespeak a comeliness in it self it appear'd Good or Evil to the reason of man but this was neither Good nor Evil in it self it receiv'd its sole Authority from the absolute Will of God and nothing could result from the fruit it self as a reason why man should not tast it but only the sole Will of God And as God's dominion was most conspicuous in this precept so man's obedience had been most eminent in observing it For in his obedience to it nothing but the sole power and Authority of God which is the proper rule of obedience could have been respected not any reason from the thing it self To this we may referre some other Commands as that of appointing the time of solemn and public Worship the seventh day though the Worship of God be a part of the Law of Nature yet the appointing a particular day wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days was grounded upon his absolute right of Legislation For there was nothing in the time it self that could render that day more Holy than another though God respected his finishing the work of Creation in his institution of that day Gen. 2.3 Such were the Ceremonial Commands of Sacrifices and Washings under the Law and the Commands of Sacraments under the Gospel The one to last till the first
But the Apostle the best Interpreter rectifies this in extending it by name to Jews as well as Gentiles Rom. 3.9 We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin And v. 10.11 12. Cites part of his Psalm and other passages of Scripture for the further evidence of it concluding by Jews and Gentiles every person in the world naturally in this State of Corruption The Psalmist first declares the Corruption of the faculties of the Soul the fool hath said in his heart Secondly the streams issuing from thence they are corrupt c. the first in Athestical principles the other in unworthy practices and lays all the Evil Tyranny Lust and Persecutions by men as if the World were only for their sake upon the neglects of God and the Atheism cherished in their hearts The fool a term in Scripture signifying a wicked man used also by the Heathen Philosophers to signifie a vicious person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as coming from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the extinction of life in Men Animals and Plants so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken * Isa 40.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the flower fadeth Isa 28.1 a plant that hath lost all that juyce that made it lovely and useful So a fool is one that hath lost his Wisdom and right notion of God and Divine things which were communicated to man by creation one dead in sin yet one not so much void of rational faculties as of Grace in those faculties not one that wants reason but abuses his reason In Scripture the word signifies foolish ‖ Mais 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put together Deut. 32.6 Oh foolish people and unwise * Said in his heart that is he thinks or he doubts or he wishes The thoughts of the heart are in the nature of words to God though not to men T is used in the like case of the Atheistical person Psal 10.11.13 He hath said in his heart God hath forgotten he hath said in his heart thou wilt not require it He doth not form a Syllogism as Calvin speaks that there is no God he dares not openly publish it though he dares secretly think it He can not rase out the thoughts of a Deity though he endeavors to blot those Characters of God in his Soul He hath some doubts whither there be a God or no He wishes there were not any and sometimes hopes there is none at all He could not so ascertain him self by convincing arguments to produce to the World but he tampered with his own heart to bring it to that perswasion and smothered in himself those notices of a Deity which is so plain against the light of nature that such a man may well be called a fool for it There is no God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non potestas Domini Chaldae T is not Jehovah which name signifies the Essence of God as the Prime and Supream being But Eloahia which name signifies the Providence of God * Muis. God as a Rector and Judge Not that he denyes the Existence of a Supream being that Created the World but his regarding the Creatures his Government of the world and consequently his reward of the Righteous or Punishments of the Wicked * Cocceius There is a threefold denyal of God 1. Quoad exisientiam this is absolute Atheism 2. Quoad Providentiam or his inspection into or care of the things of the World bounding him in the Heavens 3. Quoad naturam in regard of one or other of the perfections due to his nature Not owning him as the Egyptians called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the denyal of the Providence of God most understand this * Eugubin in cloc not excluding the absolute Atheist as Diagoras is reported to be nor the Sceptical Atheist as Protagoras who doubted whither there were a God Those that deny the Providence of God do in effect deny the being of God for they strip him of that Wisdom Goodness Tenderness Mercy Justice Righteousness which are the Glory of the Deity And that principle of a greedy desire to be uncontroul'd in their Lusts which induceth men to a denyal of Providence that thereby they might stifle those seeds of fear which infect and embitter their sinful pleasures may as well lead them to deny that there is any such being as a God That at one blow their fears may be dasht all in peices and dissolved by the removal of the Foundation As men who desire liberty to commit works of darkness would not have the lights in the House dimm'd but extinguished What men say against Providence because they would have no check in their Lusts they may say in their hearts against the existence of God upon the same account little difference between the dissenting from the one and disowning the other They are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that doth good He speaks of the Atheist in the singular the fool of the corruption issuing in the life in the plural Intimating that though some few may choak in their hearts the sentiments of God and his Providence and positively deny them yet there is something of a secret Atheism in all which is the fountain of the evil practices in their lives not an utter disowning of the Being of a God but a denyal or doubting of some of the rights of his nature * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies When men deny the God of purity they must needs be polluted in Soul and Body and grow brutish in their actions When the sense of Religion is shaken off all kind of wickedness is eagerly rusht into whereby they become as loathsome to God as putrified carcases are to men * Atheism absolute is not in all mens judgements but practical is in all mens actions The Apostle in the Romans applying the later part of it to all mankind but not the former As the word translated corrupt signifies Not one or two evil actions is the product of such a principle but the whole scene of a mans life is corrupted and becomes execrable No man is exempted from some spice of Atheism by the depravation of his nature which the Psalmist intimates there is none that doth good Though there are indelible convictions of the being of a God that they cannot absolutely deny it yet there are some Atheistical bublings in the hearts of men which Evidence themselves in their actions As the Apostle Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him Evil works are a dust stirred up by an Atheistical breath He that habituates himself in some sordid lust can scarcly be said seriously and firmly to believe that there
is a God in being and the Apostle doth not say that they know God but they profess to know him True knowledge and profession of knowledge are distinct It intimates also to us the unreasonableness of Atheism in the Consequence when men shut their eyes against the beams of so clear a sun God revengeth himself upon them for their impiety by leaving them to their own wills lets them fall into the deepest sink and dregs of iniquity and since they doubt of him in their hearts suffers them above others to deny him in their works this the Apostle discourseth at large * Rom. 1.24 The Text then is a description of mans Corruption 1. Of his mind The fool hath said in his heart No better title than that of a fool is afforded to the Atheist 2. Of the other faculties 1. In sins of Commission exprest by the loathsomeness corrupt abominable 2. In sins of Ommission there is none that doth good he lays down the Corruption of the mind as the cause the corruption of the other faculties as the effect I. Doct. 1 'T is a great Folly to deny or doubt of the Existence or Being of God Or An Atheist is a great Fool. II. Practical Atheism is natural to man in his corrupt State 'T is against Nature as constituted by God but Natural as Nature is depraved by Man The absolute disowning of the Being of a God is not natural to men but the contrary is natural but an inconsideration of God or mis-representation of his Nature is natural to Man as corrupt III. A secret Atheism or a partial Atheism is the Spring of all the wicked Practices in the world The disorders of the Life spring from the ill dispositions of the Heart For the first every Atheist is a Grand Fool. If he were not a Fool he would not imagine a thing so contrary to the stream of the Universal Reason of the world contrary to the rational Dictates of his own Soul and contrary to the Testimony of every Creature and Link in the Chain of Creation If he were not a Fool he would not strip himself of Humanity and degrade himself lower than the most despicable Brute 'T is a Folly for tho God be so Inaccessible that we cannot know him perfectly yet he is so much in the light that we cannot be totally ignorant of him As he cannot be comprehended in his Essence he cannot be unknown in his Existence 't is as easie by Reason to understand that he is as it is difficult to know what he is The Demonstrations Reason furnisheth us with for the Existence of God will be Evidences of the Atheist's Folly One would think there were little need of spending time in evidencing this Truth since in the Principle of it it seems to be so universally own'd and at the first proposal and demand gains the assent of most men But 1. Doth not the growth of Atheism among us render this Necessary may it not justly be suspected that the swarms of Atheists are more numerous in our times than History Records to have been in any age when men will not only say it in their hearts but publish it with their lips and boast that they have shaken of those Shackles which bind other mens Consciences Doth not the bare-fac'd Debauchery of men evidence such a setled Sentiment or at least a careless Beleif of the truth which lies at the root and sprouts up in such venemous branches in the World Can mens hearts be free from that Principle wherewith their Practices are so openly depraved 'T is true the light of Nature shines too vigorously for the Power of Man totally to put it out yet loathsom Actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity and are like Mists that darken the light of the Sun though they cannot extinguish it their Consciences as a Candlestick must hold it though their unrighteousness obscure it Rom. 1.18 Who hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness The engraved Characters of the Law of Nature remain though they dawb them with their muddy Lusts to make them illegible So that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravigancies of men and as Austin saith the Proposition is always true the Fool hath said in his heart c. and more evidently true in this age than any it will not be unnecsseary to discourse of the Demonstrations of this first Principle The Apostles spent little time in urgng this Truth it was taken for granted all over the world and they were generally devout in the Worship of those Idols they thought to be Gods That age run from one God to many and our age is running from one God to none at all 2. The Existence of God is the Foundation of all Religion The whole Building totters if the Foundation be out of Course If we have not deliberate and right Notions of it we shall perform no Worship no Service yeild no affection to him If there be not a God 't is impossible there can be one for Eternity is Essential to the notion of a God so all Religion would be vain and unreasonable to pay Homage to that which is not in being nor can ever be We must first beleive that he is and that he is what he declares himself to be before we can seek him adore him and devote our Affections to him * Heb. 11.6 We cannot pay God a due and regular Homage unless we understand him in his Perfections what he is and we can pay him no Homage at all unless we beleive that he is 3. 'T is sit we should know why we beleive that our Beleif of a God may appear to be upon undeniable Evidence and that we may give a better reason for his Existence than that we have heard our Parents and Teachers tell us so and our acquaintance think so 'T is as much as to say there is no God when we know not why we believe there is and would not consider the Arguments for his Existence 4. It is necessary to depress that secret Atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature Though every visible object which offers it self to our sense presents a Deity to our minds and exhorts us to subscribe to the truth of it yet there is a Root of Atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations inordinate actions and secret wishes Certain it is that every man that doth not love God denyes God now can he that disaffects him and hath a slavish fear of him wish his Existence and say to his own heart with any chearfulness there is a God and make it his cheif care to perswade himself of it he would perswade himself there is no God and stifle the seeds of it in his Reason and Conscience that he might have the greatest liberty to intertain the allurements of the Flesh 'T is necessary to Excite men to daily and actual considerations of
of God in the Earth as if one heart acted every Man in the world The great Apostle cites the Text to verefie the charge he brought against all mankind * Rom. 3.9 10.11.12 In his interpretation the Jews who owned one God and were dignified with special priviledges as well as the Gentiles that maintained many Gods are within the compass of this Character The Apostle leaves out the first part of the Text the fool hath said in his heart but takes in the latter part and the verses following He charges all because all every man of them was under sin There is none that seeks God and ver 19. He adds what the law saith it speaks to those that are under the Law That none should imagine he included only the Gentiles and exempted the Jews from this description The Leprosie of Atheism had infected the whole Mass of human nature No Man among Jews or Gentiles did naturally seek God and therefore all were void of any spark of the practical sence of the Deity The effects of this Atheism are not in all externally of an equal size Yet in the fundamentals and radicals of it there is not a hairs difference between the best and the worst men that ever traversed the world The distinction is laid either in common Grace bounding and suppressing it or in special Grace killing and crucifying it T is in every one either triumphant or militant reigning or deposed No Man is any more born with sensible acknowledgments of God than he is born with a clear knowledge of the nature of all the Stars in the Heavens or Plants upon the Earth None seeks after God * Coccei None seek God as his rule as his end as his happiness which is a debt the Creature naturally owes to God he desires no communion with God He places his happiness in any thing inferior to God He prefers every thing before him glorifies every thing above him he hath no delight to know him he regards not those paths which lead to him he loves his own filth better than Gods Holiness his actions are tinctured and dyed with self and are void of that respect which is due from him to God The noblest Faculty of Man his Understanding wherein the remaining Lineaments of the Image of God are visible the highest Operation of that Faculty which is Wisdom is in the Judgment of the Spirit of God Devilish whiles it is earthly and sensual * Jam. 3.15 and the Wisdom of the best man is no better by Nature a legion of impure Spirits possess it Devilish as the Devil who though he believe there is a God yet acts as if there were none and wishes he had no Superior to prescribe him a Law and inflict that punishment upon him which his Crimes have merited Hence the Poyson of Man by Nature is said to be like the Poyson of a Serpent alluding to that serpentine temptation which first infected Mankind and changed the nature of Man into the likeness of that of the Devil * Psal 58.4 So that notwithstanding the Harmony of the World that presents men not only with the Notice of the Being of a God but darts into their minds some remarks of his Power and Eternity yet the thoughts and reasonings of Man are so corrupt as may well be called Diabolical and as contrary to the Perfection of God and the original Law of their Nature as the actings of the Devil are For since every natural Man is a Child of the Devil and is acted by the Diabolical Spirit he must needs have that Nature which his Father hath and the Infusion of that Venom which the Spirit that acts him is possessed with though the full Discovery of it may be restrained by various Circumstances Eph. 2.2 To conclude though no man or at least very few arrive to a round and positive Conclusion in their hearts that there is no God yet there is no man that naturally hath in his heart any reverence of God In general before I come to a particular Proof take some Propositions Proposition 1. Actions are a greater discovery of a Principle than Words The Testimony of Works is louder and clearer than that of Words and the Frame of mens hearts must be measured rather by what they do than by what they say There may be a mighty distance between the Tongue and the Heart but a Course of Actions is as little guilty of lying as Interest is according to our common saying All outward Impieties are the branches of an Atheism at the root of our Nature as all pestilential sores are expressions of the Contagion in the Blood Sin is therefore frequently called Ungodliness in our English Dialect Mens Practices are the best Indexes of their Principles The Current of a Mans Life is the counter-part of the Frame of his Heart Who can deny an Error in the Spring or Wheels when he perceives an Error in the hand of the Dial Who can deny an Atheism in the Heart when so much is visible in the Life The Tast of the water discovers what Mineral 't is strained through A practical Denial of God is worse than a verbal because deeds have usually more of deliberation than words words may be the fruit of a Passion but a set of evil actions are the fruit and evidence of a predominant evil Principle in the Heart All slighting words of a Prince do not argue an habitual Treason but a succession of overt treasonable Attempts signifie a setled treasonable disposition in the Mind Those therefore are more deservedly termed Atheists who acknowledge a God and walk as if there were none than those if there can be any such that deny a God and walk as if there were one A Sense of God in the Heart would burst out in the Life Where there is no reverence of God in the Life 't is easily concluded there is less in the Heart What doth not influence a Man when it hath the addition of the Eyes and censures of outward Spectators and the care of a Reputation so much the God of the world to strengthen it and restrain the action must certainly have less power over the Heart when it is single without any other concurrence The Flames breaking out of a house discover the Fire to be much stronger and fiercer within The Apostle judgeth those of the Circumcision who gave heed to Jewish Fables to be Denyers of God though he doth not tax them with any notorious Prophaness Tit. 1.16 They profess that they know God but in works they deny him he gives them Epithites contrary to what they arrogated to themselves * Illyric They boasted themselves to be holy the Apostle calls them abominable They bragged that they fulfilled the Law and observed the Traditions of their Fathers the Apostle calls them disobedient or unperswadable They boasted that they only had the Rule of Righteousness and a sound Judgment concerning it the Apostle said they had a
it as a Sacrifice to Devils It was not the intention of Jeroboam to establish Priests to the Devil when he Consecrated them to the service of his Calves for Jehu afterwards calls them the Servants of the Lord 2 King 10.23 See if there be here none of the Servants of the Lord to distinguish them from the Servants of Baal signifying that the true God was Worshipped under those Images and not Baal nor any of the Gods of the Heathens yet the Scripture couples the Calves and Devils together and ascribes the Worship given to one to be given to the other * 2 Cron. 11.15 He ordained him Priests for the high places and for the Devils and for the Calves which he had made so that they were Sacrifices to Devils notwithstanding the intention of Jeroboam and his Subjects that had set them up and worshipped them because they were contrary to the mind of God and agreeable to the Doctrine and mind of Satan tho the object of their worship in their own intention were not the Devil but some deified man or some Canonized Saint The intention makes not a good action If so when men kill the best Servants of God with a design to do God service as our Saviour foretels * Joh. 16.2 the action would not be Murder yet who can call it otherwise since God is wronged in the persons of his servants Since most of the worship of the world which mens corrupt natures incline them to is false and different from the revealed will of God t is a practical acknowledgment of the Devil as the Governour by acknowleding and practising those Doctrines which have not the stamp of Divine Revelation upon them but were minted by Satan to depress the Honour of God in the world It doth concern men then to take good heed that in their acts of worship they have a Divine rule otherwise it is an owning the Devil as the rule for there is no medium Whatsoever is not from God is from Satan But to bring this closer to us and consider that which is more common among us Men that are in a natural condition and Wedded to their lusts are under the paternal Government of Satan Joh. 8.44 Ye are of your Father the Devil and the lusts of your Father you will do If we divide sin into Spiritual and carnal which division comprehends all the Devils authority is owned in both In spiritual we conform to his example because those he commits In carnal we obey his will because those he directs He acts the one and sets us a Copy He tempts to the other and gives us a kind of a precept Thus man by nature being a willing servant of sin is more desirous to be bound in the Devils Iron Chain than in Gods silken Cords What greater Atheism can there be than to use God as if he were inferior to the Devil to take the part of his greatest Enemy who drew all others into the faction against him to pleasure Satan by offending God and gratifie our adversary with the injury of our Creator For a Subject to take arms against his Prince with the deadliest Enemy both himself and Prince hath in the whole world adds a greater blackness to the Rebellion 2. The more visible rule preferred before God in the World is man The opinion of the world is more our rule than the precept of God and many mens abstinence from sin is not from a sense of the Divine Will no nor from a priciple of reason but from an affection to some man on whom they depend or fear of punishment from a superior The same principle with that in a ravenous beast who abstains from what he desires for fear only of a stick or Club Men will walk with the Herds go in fashion with the most speak and act as the most do While we conform to the world we cannot perform a reasonable service to God nor prove nor approve practically what the good and acceptable Will of God is The Apostle puts them in opposition to one another * Rom. 12.1 2. This appears 1. In complying more with the dictates of men than the Will of God Men draw encouragement from Gods forbearance to sin more freely against him but the fear of punishment for breaking the Will of Man lays a restraint upon them The fear of man a is more powerful curb to restrain men in their duty than the fear of God So we may please a Friend a Master a Governour we are regardless whither we please God or no Men pleasers are more than God pleasers Man is more advanced as a rule than God when we submit to human orders and stagger and dispute against Divine Would not a Prince think himself slighted in his authority if any of his Servants should decline his commands by the order of one of his subjects And will not God make the same account of us when we deny or delay our obedience for fear of one of his Creatures In the fear of man we as little acknowledge God for our Soveraign as we do for our comforter Isa 51.12 13. I even I am he that comforteth you who art thou thou shouldst be affraid of a man that shall die c. and forgettest the Lord thy maker c. We put a slight upon God as if he were not able to bear us out in our duty to him and uncapable to ballance the strength of an arm of flesh 2. In observing that which is materially the Will of God not because t is his Will but the injunctions of men As the word of God may be received yet not as his word so the Will of God may be performed yet not as his Will T is materially done but not formally obeyed An action and obedience in that action are two things as when man Commands the ceasing from all works of the ordinary calling on the Sabbath t is the same that God enjoyns the Cessation or attendance of his servants on the hearing the word are conformable in the matter of it to the Will of God but it is only conformable in the obediential part of the acts to the Will of man when it is done only with respect to a human precept As God hath a right to enact his laws without consulting his Creature in the way of his government So man is bound to obey those Laws without consulting whither they be agreeable to mens laws or no If we act the Will of God because the Will of our superiors concurs with it we obey not God in that but man a human Will being the rule of our obedience and not the Divine This is to vilifie God and make him inferior to man in our esteem and a valuing the rule of man above that of our Creator Since God is the highest perfection and infinitely good whatsoever rule he gives the Creature must be good else it cannot proceed from God A base thing cannot be the product of an infinite excellency
morally carnal in the practises as the Ceremonies were materially carnal in their substance It was not their disobedience to observe them but it was a disobedience and a contempt of the end of the institution to rest upon them to be warm in them and cold in morals They fed upon the Bone and neglected the Marrow pleased themselves with the Shell and sought not for the Kernel They joyned not with them the internal Worship of God Fear of him with Faith in the promised Seed which lay vail'd under those Coverings Hos 6.6 I desired Mercy and not Sacrifice and the Knowledge of God more than burnt Offerings And therefore he seems sometimes weary of his own institutions and calls them not his own but their Sacrifices their Feasts Isa 1.11 14. They were his by appointment theirs by abuse The Institution was from his goodness and condescension therefore his the corruption of them was from the vice of their Nature therefore theirs He often blamed them for their carnality in them shew'd his dislike of placing all their Religion in them gives the Sacrificers upon that account no better a title than that of the Princes of Sodom and Gomorrah * Isa 1.10 And compares the Sacrifices themselves to the cutting off a Dog's Neck Swines Blood and the Murder of a Man * Isa 66.3 And indeed God never valued them or exprest any delight in them He despised the Feasts of the Wicked Amos 5.21 and had no esteem for the material Offerings of the Godly Psal 50.13 Will I eat the flesh of Bulls or drink the blood of Goats which he speaks to his Saints and People before he comes to reprove the Wicked which he begins v. 16. But to the Wicked God said c. So slightly he esteemed them that he seems to disown them to be any part of his Command when he brought his People out of the Land of Egypt Jer. 7.21 I spake not to your Fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt Offerings and Sacrifices He did not value and regard them in comparison of that inward frame which he had required by the moral Law that being given before the Law of Ceremonies obliged them in the first place to an observance of those Precepts They seemed to be below the Nature of God and could not of themselves please him None could in reason perswade themselves that the death of a Beast was a proportionable Offering for the sin of a Man or ever was intended for the expiation of Transgression In the same rank are all our bodily services under the Gospel A loud voice without Spirit bended bulrushes without inward affections are no more delightful to God than the Sacrifices of Animals 'T is but a change of one Brute for another of a higher species a meer Brute for that part of man which hath an agreement with Brutes Such a service is a meer animal service and not spiritual 5. And therefore God never intended that sort of Worship to be durable and had often mentioned the change of it for one more spiritual It was not good or evil in it self whatsoever goodness it had was solely deriv'd to it by institution and therefore it was mutable It had no conformity with the spiritual nature of God who was to be worshipped nor with the rational nature of man who was to worship And therefore he often speaks of taking away the New-Moons and Feasts and Sacrifices and all the ceremonial Worship as things he took no pleasure in to have a Worship more suted to his excellent Nature But he never speaks of removing the Gospel Administration and the worship prescribed there as being more agreeable to the nature and perfections of God and displaying them more illustriously to the World The Apostle tells us it was to be disannul'd because of its weakness * Heb. 7.18 A determinate time was fixed for its duration till the accomplishment of the truth figured under that Pedagogy * Gal. 4.2 Some of the modes of that worship being only typical must naturally expire and be insignificant in their use upon the finishing of that by the Redeemer which they did prefigure And other parts of it though God suffered them so long because of the weakness of the Worshipper yet because it became not God to be alway worshipped in that manner he would reject them and introduce another more spiritual and elevated Incense and a pure Offering should be offered every where unto his Name * Mal. 1.11 * Pascal Pen. 142. He often told them he would make a new Covenant by the Messiah and the old should be rejected that the former things should not be remembred and the things of old no more considered when he should do a new thing in the Earth * Isa 43.18.19 Even the Ark of the Covenant the Symbol of his presence and the glory of the Lord in that Nation should not any more be remembered and visited * Jer. 3.16 That the Temple and Sacrifices should be rejected and others established That the Order of the Aaronical Priest-hood should be abolisht and that of Melchisedeck set up in the stead of it in the Person of the Messiah to endure for ever * Psal 110. That Jerusalem should be changed a new Heaven and Earth created a Worship more conformable to Heaven more advantagious to Earth God had proceeded in the removal of some parts of it before the time of taking down the whole furniture of this house The Pot of Manna was lost Vrim and Thumim ceased the glory of the Temple was diminish'd and the ignorant people wept at the sight of the one without raising their Faith and Hope in the consideration of the other which was promised to be filled with a spiritual glory And as soon as ever the Gospel was spread in the World God thundred out his judgments upon that place in which he had fixed all those legal Observances so that the Jews in the Letter and Flesh could never practise the main part of their worship since they were expelled from that place where it was only to be celebrated 'T is one thousand six hundred years since they have been deprived of their Altar which was the foundation of all the Levitical-worship and have wandred in the world without a Sacrifice a Prince or Priest an Ephod or Teraphim * Hos 3.4 And God fully put an end to it in the Command he gave to the Apostles and in them to us in the presence of Moses and Elias to hear his Son only Matth. 17.5 Behold a voice out of the Cloud which said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him And at the death of our Saviour testified it to that whole Nation and the World by the rending in twain the vail of the Temple The whole frame of that service which was carnal and by reason of the corruption of Man weakned is nulled and a spiritual worship is made known to the world
from no other cause but the unchangeableness of his Nature The reason why Men stand not to their Covenant is because they are not always the same I am that is I am the same before the Creation of the World and since the creation of the World before the entrance of Sin and since the entrance of Sin before their going into Egypt and whiles they remain in Egypt * Spanhe Synta part 1. p. 39. The very Name Jehovah bears according to the Grammatical Order a mark of Gods Unchangeableness It never hath any thing added to it nor any thing taken from it It hath no Plural Number no Affixes a Custom peculiar to the Eastern Languages It never changes its letters as other words do * Petav. Theol Dogmat. Tom. 1. cap 6. § 6.7 8. That only is a true being which hath not only an eternal Existence but stability in it That is not truly a Being that never remains in the same state All things that are changed cease to be what they were and begin to be what they were not and therefore cannot have the title truly applied to them they are they are indeed but like a River in a continual Flux that no man ever sees the same let his eye be fixed upon one place of it the water he sees slides away and that which he saw not succeeds in its place let him take his eye off but for the least moment and fix it there again and he sees not the same that he saw before All sensible things are in a perpetual stream that which is sometimes this and sometimes that is not because it is not always the same whatsoever is changed is something now which it was not alway But of God it is said I am which could not be if he were changeable for it may be said of him he is not as well he is because he is not what he was If we say not of him he was nor he will be but only he is whence should any change arrive He must invincibly remain the same of whose Nature Perfections Knowledge and Will it cannot be said it was as if it were not now in him or it shall be as if it were not yet in him But he is because he doth not only exist but doth alway exist the same I am that is I receive from no other what I am in my self He depends upon no other in his Essence Knowledge Purposes and therefore hath no changing Power over him 2. If God were changeable He could not be the most perfect Being God is the most perfect Being and possesses in himself infinite and essential Goodness Mat. 5.48 Your heavenly Father is perfect If he could change from that Perfection he were not the highest Exemplar and Copy for us to write after If God doth change it must be either to a greater Perfection than he had before or to a less mutatio perfectiva vel amissiva If he changes to acquire a Perfection he had not then he was not before the most excellent Being necessarily He was not what he might be there was a defect in him and a privation of that which is better than what he had and was and then he was not alway the best and so was not alway God and being not alway God could never be God for to begin to be God is against the Notion of God Not to a less perfection than he had that were to change to imperfection and to lose a perfection which he possessed before and cease to be the best Being for he would lose some good which he had and acquire some evil which he was free from before So that the soveraign Perfection of God is an invincible Bar to any change in him For which way soever you cast it for a change his supream Excellency is impaired and nulled by it For in all change there is something from which a thing is changed and something to which it is changed so that on the one part there is a loss of what it had and on the other part there is an acquisition of what it had not If to the better he was not perfect and so was not God if to the worse he will not be perfect and so be no longer God after that change If God be changed his change must be voluntary or necessary if voluntary he then intends the change for the better and chose it to acquire a Perfection by it The Will must be carried out to any thing under the notion of some Goodness in that which it desires Since Good is the Object of the desire and will of the Creature Evil cannot be the Object of the desire and will of the Creator And if he should be changed for the worse when he did really intend the better it would speak a defect of Wisdom and a mistake of that for good which was evil and imperfect in it self and if it be for the better it must be a motion or change for something without himself that which he desireth is not possessed by himself but by some other There is then some good without him and above him which is the end in this change for nothing acts but for some end and that end is within it self or without it self If the end for which God changes be without himself then there is something better than himself Besides if he were voluntarily changed for the better why did he not change before If it were for want of Power he had the imperfection of weakness If for want of knowledge of what was the best Good he had the imperfection of Wisdom he was ignorant of his own Happiness If he had both Wisdom to know it and Power to effect it it must be for want of Will He then wanted that love to himself and his own Glory which is necessary in the supream Being Voluntarily he could not be changed for the worse he could not be such an Enemy to his own Glory there is nothing but would hinder its own Imperfection and becoming worse Necessarily he could not be changed for that necessity must arise from himself and then the difficulties spoken of before will recurr or it must arise from another He cannot be bettered by another because nothing hath any good but what it hath received from the hands of his bounty and that without loss to himself nor made worse if any thing made him worse it would be Sin but that cannot touch his Essence or obscure his Glory but in the design and nature of the Sin it self Job 35.6 7. If thou sinnest what dost thou against him Or if thy Transgressions be multiplyed what dost thou unto him If thou be righteous what givest thou him or what receives he at thy hand He hath no addition by the Service of Man no more than the Sun hath of Light by a multitude of Torches kindled on the Earth nor any more impair by the Sins of Men than the Light of the Sun hath by mens
ignorant of vvhat is done vvithin and vvithout no ignorance can be fastned upon him vvho hath an Universal Presence Hence by the way we may take notice of the wonderful Patience of God who bears with so many provocations not from a Principle of Ignorance for he bears with Sins that are committed near him in his sight Sins that he sees and cannot but see 5. Hence may be infer'd the Incomprehensibility of God He that fills Heaven and Earth cannot be contain'd in any thing he fills the Understandings of Men the Understandings of Angels but is comprehended by neither 't is a rashness to think to find out any bounds of God there 's no measuring of an infinite Being if it were to be measur'd it were not infinite but because it is infinite it is not to be measured God sits above the Cherubims * Ezek. 10.1 above the fulness above the brightness not only of a humane but a created understanding Nothing is more present than God yet nothing more hid he is Light and yet obscurity * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dyonisius called God his Perfections are visible yet unsearchable We know there is an infinite God but it surpasseth the compass of our minds we know there is no Number so great but another may be added to it but no man can put it in practice without losing himself in a maze of Figures What is the reason we comprehend not many nay most things in the World partly from the Excellency of the object and partly from the Imperfection of our understandings How can we then comprehend God who exceeds all and is exceeded by none contains all and is contained by none is above our understanding as well as above our sense as considered in himself infinite as consider'd in comparison with our understandings incomprehensible who can with his eye measure the breadth length and depth of the Sea and at one cast view every dimension of the Heavens God is greater and we cannot know him Job 36.26 he fills the understanding as he fills Heaven and Earth yet is above the understanding as he is above Heaven and Earth He is known by Faith enjoy'd by love but comprehended by no mind God is not contain'd in that one Syllable God by it we apprehend an excellent and unlimited nature himself only understands himself and can unveil himself 6. How wonderful is God and how nothing are Creatures Ascribe the Greatness to our God * Deut. 33.3 He is admirable in the consideration of his Power in the extent of his understanding and no less wonderful in the immensity of his Essence That as Austin saith he is in the World yet not confin'd to it he is out of the World yet not debarr'd from it he is above the World yet not elevated by it he is below the World yet not deprest by it he is above all equall'd by none he is in all not because he needs them but they stand in need of him this as well as Eternity makes a vast disproportion between God and the Creature The Creature is bounded by a little space and no space is so great as to bound the Creator By this we may take a prospect of our own nothingness as in the consideration of Gods Holiness we are minded of our own impurity and in the thoughts of his Wisdom have a view of our own folly and in the meditation of his Power have a sense of our weakness so his Immensity should make us according to our own nature appear little in our own eyes What little little little things are we to God less than an Atome in the Beams of the Sun poor drops to a God that fills Heaven and Earth and yet dare we to strut against him and dash our selves against a Rock If the consideration of our selves in comparison with others be apt to puff us up the consideration of our selves in comparison with God will be sufficient to pull us down if we consider him in the greatness of his Essence there is but little more proportion between him and us than between being and not being than between a Drop and the Ocean How should we never think of God without a Holy Admiration of his Greatness and a deep sense of our own littleness and as the Angels cover their faces before him with what awe should creeping Worms come into his Sight and since God fills Heaven and Earth with his Presence we should fill Heaven and Earth with his Glory for this end he Created Angels to Praise him in Heaven and men to Worship him on Earth that the Places he fills with his Presence may be filled with his Praise We should be swallow'd up in admirations of the Immensity of God as men are at the first sight of the Sea when they behold a mass of Waters without beholding the bounds and immense depth of it 7. How much is this Attribute of God forgotten or contemned We pretend to believe him to be present every where and yet many live as if he were present no where 1. 'T is commonly forgotten or not believ'd All the extravagancies of men may be traced to the forgetfulness of this Attribute as their Spring The first Speech Adam spake in Paradice after his fall testified his unbelief of this * Gen. 3.10 I heard thy Voyce in the Garden and I hid my self his ear understood the voice of God but his mind did not conclude the Presence of God he thought the Trees could shelter him from him whose eye was present in the minutest parts of the Earth he that thought after his Sin that he could hide himself from the Presence of his Justice thought before that he could hide himself from the Presence of his Knowledge and being deceived in the one he would try what would be the fruit of the other In both he forgets if not denies this Attribute either corrupt notions of God or a slight belief of what in general men assent unto gives Birth to every Sin In all Transgressions there is something of Atheism either denying the Being of God or a dash upon some Perfection of God a not believing his Holiness to hate it his Truth that threatens his Justice to punish it and his Presence to observe it Tho' God be not afar off in his Essence he is afar off in the apprehension of the Sinner Drexel Nicet lib. 2. cap. 10. There is no wicked man but if he be an Atheist he is a Heretick and to gratify his Lust will fancy himself to be out of the Presence of his Judge His reason tells him God is present with him his Lust presseth him to embrace the season of a sensual Pleasure he will forsake his Reason and prove a Heretick that he may be an undisturbed Sinner and Sins doubly both in the error of his mind and the vileness of his practice he will conceit God with those in Job Job 22.14 Vail'd with thick Clouds and not able to
him he therefore knows innumerable Worlds innumerable Angels with higher Perfections than any of them which he hath Created have So that if the World should last many Millions of Years God knows that he can every day Create another World more capacious than this and having Created an unconceivable number he knows he could still Create more So that he beholds infinite Worlds infinite numbers of Men and other Creatures in himself infinite kinds of things infinite species and individuals under those kinds even as many as he can Create if his Will did order and determine it Ficin de immort lib. 2. cap. 10. for not being ignorant of his own Power he cannot be ignorant of the effects wherein it may display and discover it self A comprehensive knowledg of his own Power doth necessarily include the objects of that power so he knows whatsoever he could effect and whatsoever he could permit if he pleased to do it If God could not understand more than he hath created he could not create more than he hath created for it cannot be conceived how he can create any thing that he is ignorant of what he doth not know he cannot do he must know also the extent of his own goodness and how far any thing is capable to partake of it so much therefore as any detract from the Knowledg of God they detract from his Power 3. 'T is further evident that God knows all possible things because he knew those things which he has created before they were created when they were yet in a possibility If God knew things before they were created he knew them when they were in a possibility and not in actual reality 'T is absurd to imagine that his Understanding did lacquy after the creatures and draw knowledg from them after they were created 'T is absurd to think that God did create before he knew what he could or would create If he knew those things he did create when they were possible he must know all things which he can create and therefore all things that are possible To conclude this We must consider that this Knowledg is of another kind than his knowledg of things that are or shall be He sees possible things as possible not as things that ever are or shall be If he saw them as existing or future and they shall never be this knowledg would be false there would be a deceit in it which cannot be He knows those things not in themselves because they are not nor in their causes because they shall never be he knows them in his own Power not in his Will He understands them as able to produce them not as willing to effect them Things possible he knows only in his Power things future he knows both in his Power and his Will as he is both able and determin'd in his own good pleasure to give being to them Those that shall never come to pass he knows only in himself as a sufficient cause those things that shall come into being he knows in himself as the efficient cause and also in their immediate second causes This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admirations of the excellency of God and the divine Knowledg his Understanding is infinite 2. God knows all things past This is an argument used by God himself to elevate his Excellency above all the commonly adored Idols Isa 41.22 Let them shew the former things what they be that we may consider them and know the latter end of them He knows them as if they were now present and not past for indeed in his Eternity there is nothing past or future to his knowledg This is called remembrance in Scripture as when God remembred Rachels prayer for a child Gen. 30.22 and he is said to put tears into his bottle and write them in his Book of Accompts which signifies the exact and unerring knowledg in God of the minute circumstances past in the World and this knowledg is called a book of remembrance Mal. 3.16 signifying the perpetual presence of things past before him There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and perpetuity of Gods knowledg of sins past Job 14.17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag and thou sowest up my iniquity A Metaphor taken from men that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep tye the bag sow up the holes and bind it hard that nothing may fall out or a vessel wherein they reserve liquors and daub it with pitch and glutinous stuff that nothing may leak out but be safely kept till the time of use Or else as some think from the bags Attorneys carry with them full of Writings when they are to manage a Cause against a person Thus we find God often in Scripture calling to mens minds their past actions upbraiding them with their ingratitude wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past benefits and their Crimes His knowledg in this regard hath something of infinity in it since tho' the sins of all men that have been in the World are finite in regard of number yet when the sins of one man in thoughts words and deeds are numberless in his own account and perhaps in the count of any creature the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have been or shall be are much more numberless it cannot be less than infinite knowledg that can make a collection of them and take a survey of them all at once If past things had not been known by God how could Moses have been acquainted with the Original of things How could he have declared the former transactions wherein all Histories are silent but the Scripture How could he know the cause of mans present misery so many ages after wherewith all Philosophy was unacquainted How could he have writ the order of the Creation the particulars of the sin of Adam the circumstances of Cains murder the private speech of Lamech to his Wives if God had not revealed them And how could a Revelation be made if things past were forgotten by him Do we not remember many things done among men as well as by our selves and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth And shall not God much more who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding A man that makes a curious Picture hath the form of it in his mind before he made it and if the fire burn it the form of it in his mind is not destroyed by the fire but retained in it Gods memory is no less perfect than his understanding If he did not know things past he could not be a righteous Governour or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner he could not dispense Rewards and Punishments according to his promises and threatnings if things that were past could be forgotten by him he could not require that which is past Eccles 3 15. if he did not remember that
of them this must be either out of Sloth but how incompatible is laziness to a pure and infinite activity or out of Majesty but 't is no less for the glory of his Majesty to conduct them than it was for the glory of his Power to erect them into Being he that counts nothing unworthy of his Arms to make nothing unworthy of his Understanding to know why should he count any thing unworthy of his Wisdom to govern If he knows them to neglect them it must be because he hath no Will to it or no Goodness for it either of these would be a stain upon God to want Goodness is to be Evil and to want Will is to be negligent and scornful which are inconsistent with an Infinite Active Goodness Doth a Father neglect providing for the wants of the Family which he knows or a Physician the cure of that Disease he understands God is Omniscient he therefore sees all things he is good he doth not therefore neglect any thing but conducts it to the end he appointed it There is nothing so little that can escape his Knowledg and therefore nothing so little but falls under his Providence nothing so sublime as to be above his Understanding and therefore nothing can be without the compass of his Conduct nothing can escape his Eye and therefore nothing can escape his Care nothing is known by him in vain as nothing was made by him in vain there must be acknowledg'd therefore some end of this knowledg of all his Creatures Instruct 3. Hence then will follow the certainty of a day of Judgment To what purpose can we imagine this Attribute of Omniscience so often declared and urg'd in Scripture to our consideration but in order to a government of our practise and a future Tryal Every Perfection of the Divine Nature hath sent out brighter Rays in the World than this of his Infinite Knowledg his Power hath been seen in the Being of the World and his Wisdom in the Order and Harmony of the Creatures his Grace and Mercy hath been plentifully poured out in the mission of a Redeemer and his Justice hath been elevated by the Dying-Groans of the Son of God upon the Cross But hath his Omniscience yet met with a Glory proportionable to that of his other Perfections all the Attributes of God that have appeared in some beautiful glimmerings in the World wait for a more full manifestation in Glory as the Creatures do for the manifestation of the Sons of God Rom. 8.19 But especially this since it hath been less evidenced than others and as much or more abused than any it expects therefore a publick righting in the eye of the World There have been indeed some few sparks of this Perfection sensibly struck out now and then in the World in some horrors of Conscience which have made men become their own Accusers of unknown Crimes in bringing out hidden Wickedness to a publick view by various Providences This hath also been the design of sprinklings of Judgments upon several Generations as Psal 90.8 We are consumed by thy Anger and by thy Wrath we are troubled thou hast set our Iniquities before thee and our secret Sins in the light of thy Countenance The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Youth as well as secret i.e. Sins committed long ago and that with secrecy By this he hath manifested that secret Sins are not hid from his eye Tho' inward Terrors and outward Judgments have been let loose to worry men into a belief of this yet the corruptions of men would still keep a contrary notion in their minds that God hath forgotten that he hides his face from Transgression and will not regard their Impiety Psal 10.11 There must therefore be a time of Tryal for the publick demonstration of this Excellency that it may receive its due Honour by a full Testimony that no secrecy can be a shelter from it As his Justice which consists in giving every one his due could not be Glorified unless men were called to an account for their actions so neither would his Omniscience appear in its illustrious colours without such a manifestation of the secret motions of mens hearts and of Villanies done under Lock and Key when none were conscious to them but the committers of them Novv the last Judgment is the time appointed for the opening of the Books Dan. 7.10 The Book of Gods Records and Conscience the counter-part were never fully opened and read before only novv and then some some pages turn'd to in particular Judgments and out of those Books shall men be judged according to their Works Rev. 20.12 Then shall the defaced Sins be brought vvith all their circumstances to every mans memory the Counsels of mens hearts fled far from their present remembrance all the habitual knovvledg they had of their ovvn actions shall by Gods knovvledg of them be excited to an actual revievv and their vvorks not only made manifest to themselves but notorious to the World All the Words Thoughts Deeds of men shall be brought forth into the light of their ovvn minds by the infinite Light of Gods understanding reflecting on them His Knovvledg renders him an unerring Witness as vvell as his Justice a swift Witness Mal. 3.5 a svvift Witness because he shall vvithout any circuit or length of Speech convince their Consciences by an invvard illumination of them to take notice of the blackness and deformity of their hearts and vvorks In all Judgments God is somevvhat knovvn to be the searcher of hearts the time of Judgment is the time of his remembrance Hos 8.13 Now will he remember their iniquity and visit their sins but the great instant or now of the full glorifying it is the grand day of account This Attribute must have a time for its full Discovery and no time can be fit for it but a time of a general reckoning Justice cannot be exercis'd without Omniscience for as Justice is a giving to every one his due so there must be knowledg to discern what is due to every man the searching the heart is in order to the rewarding the works 4. This Perfection in God gives us ground to believe a Resurrection Who can think this too hard for his Power since not the least Atome of the Dust of our Bodies can escape his Knowledg An infinite Understanding comprehends every mite of a departed Carcass this will not appear impossible nor irrational to any upon a serious consideration of this excellency in God The body is perished the matter of it hath been since clothed with different forms and figures part of it hath been made the body of a Worm part of it returned to the Dust that hath been blown away by the Wind part of it hath been concocted in the Bodies of Cannibals Fish ravenous Beasts the Spirits have evaporated into Air part of the Blood melted into Water what then is the matter of the body annihilated is that wholly perished no the
the thronging multitudes Our groans are as audible and intelligible to him as our words and he knows what is the mind of his own Spirit though exprest in no plainer language than sobs and heavings * Rom. 8.27 Thus David cheers up himself under the neglects of his Friends Psal 38.9 Lord my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Not a groan of a panting Spirit shall be lost till God hath lost his knowledge Not a Petition forgotten while God hath a Record nor a Tear dried while God hath a Bottle to reserve it in * Psal 56.8 Our secret works are also known and observed by him not only our outward labour but our inward love in it Heb. 6.10 If with Isaac we go privately into the Field to meditate or secretly cast our Bread upon the Waters he keeps his Eye upon us to Reward us and returns the Fruit into our own Bosoms * Mat. 6.4.6 Yea though it be but a Cup of cold Water from an inward Spring of love given to a Disciple He sees your works and your labour and faith and patience in working them * Rev. 2.2 all the marks of your industry and strength of your intentions and Will be as exact at last in order to a due Praise as to open Sins in order to a just Recompence * 1 Cor. 4.5 6. The Consideration of this excellent Attribute affords Comfort in the Afflictions of good Men. He knows their Pressures as well as hears their Cries * Exod. 3.7 His Knowledge comes not by information from us but his Compassionate listening to our Cries springs from his own Inspection into our Sorrows He is affected with them before we make any discovery of them He is not ignorant of the best Season when they may be usefully inflicted and when they may be profitably removed The Tribulation and Poverty of his Church is not unknown to him Rev. 2.8 9. I know thy Works and Tribulation c. He knows their Works and what Tribulation they meet with for him He sees their extremities when they are toiling against the Wind and Tide of the World * Mark 6.48 Yea the natural exigencies of the multitude are not neglected by him he discerns to take care of them Our Saviour considered the three days fasting of his Followers and miraculously provides a Dish for them in the Wilderness No good Man is ever out of Gods Mind and therefore never out of his Compassionate Care His Eye pierceth into their Dungeons and pities their Miseries Joseph may forget his Brethren and the Disciples not know Christ when he walks upon the Midnight Waves and Turbulent Sea * Barlow's Man 's Refuge p. 29 30. but a Lyons Den cannot obscure a Daniel from his Sight nor the depths of the Whales Belly bury Jonah from the Divine Understanding He discerns Peter in his Chains and Stephen under the Stones of Martyrdom He knows Lazarus under his tatter'd Rags and Abel wallowing in his Blood His Eye and Knowledge goes along with his People when they are transplanted into Foreign Countreys and sold for Slaves into the Islands of the Grecians for he will raise them out of the place Joel 3.6 7. He would defeat the hopes of the Persecutors and applaud the Patience of his People He knows his People in the Tabernacle of Life and in the Valley of the Shadow of Death Psal 23. He knows all penal Evils because he commissions and directs them He knows the Instruments because they are his Sword * Psal 17.13 and he knows his gracious Sufferer because he hath his Mark He discerns Job in his Anguish and the Devil in his Malice By the direction of this Attribute he orders Calamities and rescues from them Thou hast seen it for thou beholdest mischief and spight * Psal 10.14 That is the Comfort of the Psalmist and the Comfort of every Believer and the Ground of committing themselves to God under all the injustice of Men. 7. 'T is a Cofmort in all our Infirmities As he knows our Sins to charge them so he knows the weakness of our Nature to pity us As his infinite Understanding may scare us because he knows our Transgressions so it may relieve us because he knows our natural mutability in our first Creation He knows our frame he remembers that we are dust * Psal 103.14 'T is the reason of the precedent Verses why he removes our Transgression from us why he is so backward in Punishing so patient in waiting so forward in pitying Why He doth not only remember our Sins but remember our frame or forming what brittle though clear Glasses we were by Creation how easie to be crackt He remembers our impotent and weak Condition by Corruption what a sink we have of vain imaginations that remain in us after Regeneration he doth not only consider that we were made according to his Image and therefore able to stand but that we were made of Dust and weak Matter and had a sensitive Soul like that of Beasts as well as an intellectual Nature like that of Angels and therefore liable to follow the dictates of it without exact care and watchfulness If he remembred only the first there would be no issue but Indignation but the Consideration of the latter moves his Compassion How miserable should we be for want of this Perfection in the Divine Nature whereby God remembers and reflects upon his past act in our first frame and the mindfulness of our Condition excites the motion of his Bowels to us Had he lost the knowledge how he first framed us did he not still remember the mutability of our Nature as we were form'd and stampt in his Mint How much more wretched would our Condition be than it is If his remembrance of our Original be one ground of his Pity the sense of his Omniscience should be a ground of our Comfort in the stirring of our infirmities He remembers we were but Dust when he made us and yet remembers we are but Dust while he preserves and forbears us 8. 'T is some Comfort in the fears of some lurking Corruption in our Hearts We know by this whither to address our selves for the search and discovery of it Perhaps some Blessings we want are retarded some Calamities we understand not the particular cause of are inflicted some Petitions we have put up hang too long for an Answer and the Chariot Wheels of Divine Goodness move slow and are long in coming Let us beg the Aid of this Attribute to open to us the Remoras to discover what base Affection there is that retards the Mercies we want or attracts the Affliction we feel or bars the Door against the return of our supplications What our dim sight cannot discover the clear Eye of God can make visible to us Job 10.2 Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me As in want of Pardon we particularly plead his Mercy and in our desires for the
together be too hard for his Invincible Power and Strength the uniting all those parts into a Body with new dispositions to receive their several Souls be too big and bulky for that Power which never yet was acquainted with any bar Was not the Miracle of our Saviours multiplying the Loaves suppose it had not been by a new Creation but a collection of Grain from several parts very near as stupendous as this Had any one of us been the only Creatures made just before the matter of the World and beheld that inform Chaos covered with a thick darkness mentioned Gen. 1.2 would not the Report that from this dark deep next to nothing should be rais'd such a multitude of comely Creatures with such innumerable varieties of Members Voices Colours Motions and such Numbers of shining Stars a bright Sun one uniform Body of Light from this Darkness that should like a Giant rejoyce to run a race for many thousands of years together without stop or weariness Would not all these have seemed as incredible as the Collection of scattered Dust What was it that erected the innumerable Host of Heaven the glorious Angels and glittering Stars for ought we know more numerous than the Bodies of Men but an act of the Divine Will and shall the Power that wrought this sink under the Charge of gathering some dispers'd Atoms and compacting them into a Human Body †Lingend Tom. 3. p. 779 780. Can you tell how the Dust of the ground was kneaded by God into the Body of Man and changed into Flesh Skin Hair Bones Sinews Veins Arteries and Blood and fitted for so many several Activities when a Human Soul was breath'd into it Can you imagine how a Rib taken from Adam's side a lifeless Bone was formed into Head Hands Feet Eyes Why may not the matter of men which have been be restor'd as well as that which was not be first erected Is it harder to repair those things which were than to create those things which were not Is there not the same Artificer Hath any Disease or Sickliness abated his Power Is the Ancient of days grown feeble or shall the Elements and other Creatures that alway yet obeyed his Command russle against his raising Voice and refuse to disgorge those remains of Human Bodies they have swallowed up in their several Bowels Did the whole World and all the parts of it rise at his word and shall not some parts of the World the Dust of the dead stand up out of the Graves at a word of the same mighty Efficacy Do we not annually see those Marks of Power which may stun our Incredulity in this Concern Do you see in a small Acorn or little Seed any such sights as a Tree with Body Bark Branches Leaves Flowers Fruit where can you find them Do you know the invisible Corners where they lurk in that little Body And yet these you afterwards view rising up from this little Body when sown in the Ground that you could not possibly have any prospect of when you rould it in your hand or opened its Bowels And why may not all the particulars of our Bodies however dispos'd as to their distinct Natures invisibly to us remain distinct as well as if you mingle a thousand Seeds together they will come up in their distinct kinds and preserve their distinct Vertues Again Is not the Making Heaven and Earth the Union of the Divine and Human Nature Eternity and Infirmity to make a Virgin conceive a Son bear the Creator and bring forth the Redeemer to form the Blood of God of the Flesh of a Virgin a greater Work than the Calling together and Uniting the scattered parts of our Bodies which are all of one Nature and Matter And since the Power of God is manifested in pardoning innumerable sins is not the scattering our Transgressions as far as the East is from the West as the expression is Psal 103.12 and casting such numbers into the Depths of the Sea which is Gods Power over himself a greater Argument of Might than the recalling and repairing the Atoms of our Bodies from their various receptacles 'T is not hard for them to believe this of the Resurrection that have been sensible of the weight and force of their Sins and the Power of God in pardoning and vanquishing that mighty resistance which was made in their Hearts against the power of his renewing and sanctifying Grace The consideration of the Infinite Power of God is a good ground of the belief of the Resurrection 8. Since the Power of God is so great and Incomprehensible How strange is it that it should be contemned and abused by the Creatures as it is The Power of God is beaten down by some outraged by others blasphemed by many under their Sufferings The stripping God of the honour of his Creation and the glory of his Preservation of the World falls under this charge Thus do they that deny his framing the World alone or thought the first matter was not of Gods creation and such as fancied an Evil Principle the Author of all Evil as God is the Author of all good and so exempt from the Power of God that it could not be vanquisht by him These things have formerly sound Defenders in the World but they are in themselves ridiculous and vain and have no sooting in common Reason and are not worthy of debate in a Christian Auditory In General All Idolatry in the World did arise from the want of a due Notion of this Infinite Power The Heathen thought one God was was not sufficient for the managing all things in the World and therefore they feign'd several gods that had several charges As Ceres presided over the Fruits of the Earth Esculapius over the Cure of Distempers Mercury for Merchandize and Trade Mars for War and Battles Apollo and Minerva for Learning and Ingenious Arts and Fortune for Casual things Whence doth the other sort of Idolatry the adoring our Bags and Gold our dependencies on and trusting in Creatures for help arise but from Ignorance of God's Power or mean and slender Apprehensions of it First There is a Contempt of it Secondly An Abuse of it 1. 'T is contemn'd in every sin especially in obstinacy in Sin All Sin whatsoever is built upon some false Notion or monstrous Conception of one or other of Gods Perfections and in particular of this It includes a secret and lurking Imagination that we are able to grapple with Omnipotence and enter the lists with Almightiness what else can be judged of the Apostles expression 1 Cor. 10.22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he Do we think we have an Arm too powerful for that Justice we provoke and can repel that Vengeance we exasperate Do we think we are an even match for God and are able to despoil him of his Divinity To despise his Will violate his Order practise what he forbids with a severe Threatning and pawns his Power
Encourage or Excite or Incline to sin How can he excite to that which when it is done he will be sure to condemn How can he be a Righteous Judge to sentence a sinner to Misery for a Crime acted by a secret Inspiration from himself Iniquity would deserve no reproof from him if he were any way positively the Author of it Were God the Author of it in us what is the reason our own Consciences accuse us for it and convince us of it that being God's Deputy would not accuse us of it if the Soveraign Power by which it acts did incline us to it How can he be thought to excite to that which he hath enacted such severe Laws to restrain or encline Man to that which he hath so dreadfully punished in his Son and which it is impossible but the excellency of his Nature must encline him eternally to hate We may sooner imagine that a pure Flame shall engender Cold and Darkness be the Off-spring of a Sun-beam as imagine such a thing as this What shall we say is there unrighteousness with God God forbid The Apostle execrates such a thought Rom. 9.14 6. God cannot act any Evil in or by himself If he cannot approve of sin in others nor excite any to iniquity which is less he cannot commit Evil himself which is greater What he cannot positively will in another can never be willed in himself he cannot do evil through Ignorance because of his Infinite Knowledge nor through Weakness because of his Infinite Power nor through Malice because of his Infinite Rectitude He cannot will any unjust thing because having an infinitely perfect Understanding he cannot judge that to be true which is false or that to be good which is evil his Will is regulated by his Wisdom If he could will any unjust and irrational thing his Will would be repugnant to his Understanding there would be a disagreement in God Will against Mind and Will against Wisdom He being the highest Reason the first Truth cannot do an unreasonable false defective Action 'T is not a defect in God that he cannot do Evil but a fulness and excellency of Power As it is not a weakness in the Light but the perfection of it that it is unable to produce Darkness God is the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness James 1.17 Nothing pleases him nothing is acted by him but what is beseeming the Infinite excellency of his own Nature The voluntary necessity whereby God cannot be unjust renders him a God blessed for ever He would hate himself as the chief Good if in any of his Actions he should disagree with his Goodness He cannot do any unworthy thing not because he wants an Infinite Power but because he is possessed of an Infinite Wisdom and adorn'd with an Infinite Purity and being infinitely pure cannot have the least mixture of impurity As if you can suppose Fire infinitely hot you cannot suppose it to have the least mixture of Coldness The better any thing is the more unable it is to do evil God being the only Goodness can as little be changed in his Goodness as in his Essence The Second thing 2. The next enquiry is The Proof that God is holy or the manifestation of it Purity is as requisite to the blessedness of God as to the Being of God As he could not be God without being blessed so he could not be blessed without being holy He is called by the title of blessed as well as by that of holy Mark 14.61 Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed Unrighteousness is a misery and turbulency in any Spirit wherein it is For it is a privation of an excellency which ought to be in every intellectual Being and what can follow upon the privation of an excellency but unquietness and grief the moth of Happiness An unrighteous man as an unrighteous man can never be blessed though he were in a local Heaven Had God the least Spot upon his Purity it would render him as miserable in the midst of his Infinite Sufficiency as Iniquity renders a man in the confluence of his earthly Enjoyments The Holiness and Felicity of God are inseparable in him The Apostle intimates that the Heathen made an attempt to sully his Blessedness when they would liken him to corruptible mutable impure man Rom. 1.23 25. They changed the Glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to Corruptible Man And after he entitles God a God blessed for ever The Gospel is therefore called The glorious Gospel of the blessed God 1 Tim. 1.11 In regard of the holiness of the Gospel Precepts and in regard of the Declaration of the holiness of God in all the Streams and Branches wherein his Purity in which his Blessedness consists is as illustrious as any other Perfection of the Divine Being God hath highly manifested this Attribute in the state of Nature in the Legal Administration in the dispensation of the Gospel His Wisdom Goodness and Power are declared in Creation his Soveraign Authority in his Law his Grace and Mercy in the Gospel and his Righteousness in all Sutable to this threefold state may be that ternal Repetition of his Holiness in the Prophecy Isai 6.3 holy as Creator and Benefactor holy as Law-giver and Judge holy as Restorer and Redeemer 1. His holiness appears as he is Creator in framing man in a perfect Vprightness Angels as made by God could not be evil for God beheld his own Works with pleasure and could not have pronounced them all good had some been created pure and others impure Two Moral Contrarieties could not be good The Angels had a first estate wherein they were happy * Jude 6. and had they not left their own habitation and state they could not have been miserable But because the Scripture speaks only of the Creation of man we will consider that the Humane Nature was well strung and tun'd by God according to the Note of his own Holiness Eccl. 7.29 God hath made man upright He had declared his Power in other Creatures but would declare in his Rational Creature what he most valued in himself and therefore created him upright with a Wisdom which is the rectitude of the Mind with a Purity which is the rectitude of the Will and Affections He had declared a purity in other Creatures as much as they were capable of viz. in the exact tuning them to answer one another And that God who so well tun'd and compos'd other Creatures would not make Man a Jarring Instrument and place a crackt Creature to be Lord of the rest of his earthly Fabrick God being holy could not set his Seal upon any Rational Creature but the Impression would be like himself pure and holy also He could not be created with an Error in his Understanding that had been inconsistent with the Goodness of God to his Rational Creature if so the erronious motion of the Will which was to follow the dictates of the
when men will study Arguments from the holy word of God to Colour shelter their Crimes When men will seek for a shelter for their Lies in that of the Midwifes to preserve the Children or in that of Rahab to save the Spies as if because God rewarded their fidelity he countenanc'd their sin How often is Scripture wrested to be a plea for unbecoming practises that God in his Word may be imagin'd a Patron for their Iniquity 'T is not unknown that some have maintain'd their quaffing and carowsing from Eccles 8.11 That a man hath no better thing under the Sun than to eat and drink and be merry And their Gluttony from Matth. 5.11 That which goes into the belly defiles not a man The Jesuits morals are a transcript of this How often hath the Passion of our Saviour the highest expression of Gods holiness been employ'd to stain it encourage the most debauched practises Grace hath been turn'd into wantonness the abundance of grace been us'd as a blast to increase the flames of sin as if God had no other aim in that work of Redemption but to discover himself more indulgent to our Sensual Appetites and by his Severity with his Son become more gracious to our Lusts This is to feed the Roots of Hell with the Dews of Heaven to make Grace a Pandor for the abuse of it and to employ the Expressions of his Holiness in his Word to be a Sword against the essential Holiness of his Nature As if a man should draw an Apology for his Treason out of that Law that was made to forbid not to protect his Rebellion Not the meanest Instrument in the Temple was to be alienated from the use it was by Divine Order appointed to nor was it to be imployed in any common use and shall the Word of God which is the Image of his Holiness be transfer'd by base Interpretations to be an Advocate for Iniquity such an ill use of his Word reflects upon that Hand which imprinted those Characters of Purity and Righteousness upon it As the mis-interpretation of the wholesome Laws of a Prince made to discourage Debauchery reflects upon his righteousness and sincerity in enacting them 5. The Holiness of God is injured when men will put up Petitions to God to favour them in a wicked Design Such there are and taxt by the Apostle James 4.3 Ye ask amiss that you may consume it upon your Lusts who desired Mercies from God with an intent to make them Instruments of Sin and Weapons of Unrighteousness as it is reported of a Thief that he always pray'd for the success of his Robery It hath not been rare in the World to appoint Fasts and Prayers for success in Wars manifestly unjust and commenc'd upon breaches of Faith Many Covetous men petition God to prosper them in their unjust gain as if the blessed God sate in his pure Majesty upon a Throne of Grace to espouse unjust practises and make Iniquity prosperous There are such as offer Sacrifice with an evil mind * Prov. 21.27 to barter with God for a Divine Blessing to spirit a wicked contrivance How great a contempt of the Holiness of God is this How inexcusable would it be for a Favourite to address himself to a just Prince with this Language Sir I desire a Boon of such Lands that lye near me for an addition to my Estate that I may have supports for my Debauchery and be able to play the Villain more powerfully among my Neighbours Hereby he implies that his Prince is a Friend to such Crimes and Wickedness he intends his Petition for Is not this the language of many mens hearts in the immediate presence of God The Order of Prayer runs thus Hallowed be thy Name first to have a deep sense of the Holiness of the Divine Nature and an ardent desire for the glory of it This Order is inverted by asking those things which are not agreeable to the Will of God not meet for us to ask nor meet for God to give or asking things agreeable to the Will of God but with a wicked intention This is in effect to desire God to strip himself of his Holiness and commit Sacriledge upon his own Nature to gratifie our Lusts 6. The Purity of God is contemned in hating and scoffing at the holiness which is in a Creature Whoever looks upon the holiness of a Creature as an unlovely thing can have no good Opinion of the amiableness of Divine Purity Whosoever hates those qualities and graces that resemble God in any person must needs contemn the Original Pattern which is more eminent in God If there be no comliness in a Creature 's holiness to render it grateful to us we should say of God himself were he visible among us with those in the Prophet Isa 53. There is no beauty in him that we should desire him Holiness is beautiful in it self If God be the most lovely Being that which is a likeness to him so far as it doth resemble him must needs be amiable because it partakes of God And therefore those that see no beauty in an inferiour holiness but contemn it because it is a Purity above them contemn God much more He that hates that which is imperfect meerly for that excellency which is in it doth much more hate that which is perfect without any mixture or stain Holiness being the glory of God the peculiar Title of the Deity and from him derived unto the Nature of a Creature he that mocks this in a Person derides God himself and when he cannot abuse the Purity in the Deity he will do it in his Image As Rebels that cannot wrong the King in his Person will do it in his Picture and his Subjects that are Loyal to him He that hates the Picture of a Man hates the Person represented by it much more he that hates the Beams hates the Sun the holiness of a Creature is but a Beam from that Infinite Sun a Stream from that Eternal Fountain Where there is a derision of the Purity of any Creature there is a greater reflection upon God in that derision as he is the Author of it If a mixed and stained holiness be more the subject of any mans Scoff than a great deal of Sin that Person hath a disposition more roundly to scoff at God himself should he appear in that unblemisht and unspotted Purity which infinitely shines in his Nature O! 't is a dangerous thing to scoff and deride holiness in any person though never so mean Such do deride and scoff at the most holy God 7. The Holiness of God is injur'd by our unprepared addresses to him when like Swine we come into the presence of God with all our mire reeking and steaming upon us A holy God requires a holy Worship And if our best Duties having filth in every part as perform'd by us are unmeet for God how much more unsutable are dead and dirty Duties to a living and
or Wisdom to have let Man perpetually wallow in that Sink wherein he had plung'd himself since he was Criminal by his own will and therefore Miserable by his own fault Nothing could necessitate this Reparation If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the Angelical Dignity to repair that Nature he is further from any Obligation by the meaness of Man to repair Humane Nature There was less necessity to restore Man than to restore the fallen Angels What could Man do to oblige God to a Reparation of him since he could not render him a Recompence for his Goodness manifested in his Creation He must be much more impotent to render him a Debtor for the Redemption of him from Misery Could it be a salary for any thing we had done Alass we are so far from Meriting it that by our daily Demerits we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further Effusions of it We could not have complain'd of him if he had left us in the Misery we had courted since he was bound by no Law to bestow upon us the Recovery we wanted When the Apostle speaks of the Gospel of Redemption he giveth it the Title of the Gospel of the Blessed God †2 Tim. 1.11 It was the Gospel of a God abounding in his own Blessedness which receiv'd no addition by Mans Redemption If he had been blessed by it it had been a goodness to himself as well as to the Creature It was not an Indigent Goodness needing the receiving any thing from us but it was a pure Goodness streaming out of it self without bringing any thing into it self for the Perfection of it There was no Goodness in us to be the Motive of his Love but his Goodness was the Fountain of our Benefit 3. It was a distinct Goodness of the whole Trinity In the Creation of Man we find a general Consultation * Gen. 1.26 without those distinct Labours and Offices of each Person and without those rais'd Expressions and Marks of Joy and Triumph as at Mans Restoration In this there are distinct Functions The Grace of the Father the Merit of the Son and the Efficacy of the Spirit The Father makes the Promise of Redemption the Son Seals it with his Blood and the Spirit applies it The Father Adopts us to be his Children the Son Redeems us to be his Members and the Spirit Renews us to be his Temples In this the Father testifies himself well pleased in a Voice The Son proclaims his own delight to do the will of God and the Spirit hastens with the Wing of a Dove to fit him for his work And afterwards in his apparition in the likeness of Fiery Tongues manifests his zeal for the propagation of the Redeeming Gospel 4. The Effects of it proclaim his great Goodness 'T is by this we are deliver'd from the Corruption of our Nature the Ruine of our Happiness the deformity of our Sins and the punishment of our Transgressions He frees us from the Ignorance wherewith we were darkned and from the Slavery wherein we were fetter'd When he came to make Adams Process after his Crime instead of pronouncing the Sentence of Death he had merited he utters a Promise that Man could not have expected His Kindness swells above his provoked Justice and while he chaseth him out of Paradise he gives him hopes of regaining the same or a better Habitation and is in the whole more ready to prevent him with the Blessings of his Goodness than charge him with the horrour of his Crimes †Gen. 3.17 'T is a Goodness that pardons us more Transgressions than there are Moments in our Lives and overlooks as many Follies as there are Thoughts in our Heart He doth not only relieve our wants but restores us to our Dignity 'T is a greater Testimony of Goodness to instate a Person in the highest Honour than barely to supply his present Necessity 'T is an admirable Pity whereby he was inclin'd to Redeem us and an incomparable Affection whereby he was resolv'd to exalt us What can be desir'd more of him than his Goodness hath granted He hath sought us out when we were lost and Ransom'd us when we were Captives He hath Pardon'd us when we were Condemn'd and rais'd us when we were Dead In Creation he rear'd us from nothing in Redemption he delivers our Understanding from ignorance and vanity and our Wills from impotence and obstinacy and our whole Man from a Death worse than that nothing he drew us from by Creation 5. Hence we may consider the height of this Goodness in Redemption to exceed that in Creation He gave Man a Being in Creation but did not draw him from unexpressible Misery by that act His Liberality in the Gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the Works of Nature His Goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief than his Goodness in Creation is visible to our Eye There is more of his Bounty exprest in that one Verse * Joh. 3.16 So God loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son than there is in the whole Volume of the World 'T is an incomprehensible so a so that all the Angels in Heaven cannot Analyze and few Comment upon or understand the dimensions of this so In Creation he form'd an Innocent Creature of the Dust of the Ground in Redemption he restores a Rebellious Creature by the Blood of his Son It is greater than that Goodness manifested in Creation 1. In regard of the difficulty of effecting it In Creation meer nothing was vanquisht to bring us into Being In Redemption sullen Enmity was conquer'd for the enjoyment of our Restoration In Creation he subdued a Nullity to make us Creatures In Redemption his Goodness overcomes his Omnipotent Justice to restore us to Felicity A word from the Mouth of Goodness inspir'd the Dust of Mens Bodies with a living Soul but the Blood of his Son must be shed and the Laws of Natural Affection seem to be overturn'd to lay the Foundation of our renew'd Happiness In the first Heaven did but speak and the Earth was form'd In the second Heaven it self must sink to Earth and be clothed with dusty Earth to reduce Mans Dust to its Original State 2. This Goodness is greater than that manifested in Creation in regard of its Cost This was a more expensive Goodness than what was laid out in Creation The redemption of one Soul is pretious †Psal 49.8 much more costly than the whole Fabrick of the World or as many Worlds as the understandings of Angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be Created For the effecting of this God parts with his dearest Treasure and his Son Eclipses his choicest Glory For this God must be made Man Eternity must suffer Death the Lord of Angels must weep in a Cradle and the Creator of the World must hang like a Slave he must be in a Manger in Bethlehem and die upon a Cross on
admirable is it for God to speak so kindly to us through the pacifying Blood of the Covenant that silenc'd the terrours of the old and setled the tenderness of the new 2. His Goodness is seen in the Nature and Tenor of the new Covenant There are in this richer Streams of Love and Pity The language of one was die if thou Sin that of the other live if thou believest †Turreti ser p. 33. The old Covenant was founded upon the obedience of Man the new is not founded upon the inconstancy of Mans Will but the firmness of Divine Love and the valuable Merit of Christ The head of the first Covenant was Humane and mutable the head of the second is Divine and immutable The Curse due to us by the breach of the first is taken off by the indulgence of the second * Rom 8.1 We are by it snatcht from the Jaws of the Law to be wrapt up in the bosom of Grace †Rom. 6.14 For you are not under the Law but under Grace from the Curse and condemnation of the Law to the sweetness and forgiveness of Grace Christ bore the one being made a Curse for us * Gal. 3.13 that we might enjoy the sweetness of the other By this we are brought from Mount Sinai the Mount of Terrour to Mount Sion the Mount of Sacrificing the Type of the great Sacrifice †Heb. 12.18 22. That Covenant brought in Death upon one offence this Covenant offers Life after many offences * Rom. 5.16 â—7 That involved us in a Curse and this enricheth us with a Blessing The breaches of that expell'd us out of Paradise and the embracing of this admits us into Heaven This Covenant demands and admits of that Repentance whereof there was no mention in the first That demanded Obedience not Repentance upon a failure and though the exercises of it had been never so deep in the fall'n Creature nothing of the Laws severity had been remitted by any vertue of it Again the first Covenant demanded exact Righteousness but conveyed no cleansing vertue upon the contracting any filth The first demands a continuance in the Righteousness conferr'd in Creation the second imprints a gracious heart in Regeneration I will pour clean Water upon you I will put a new Spirit within you was the voice of the second Covenant not of the first Again as to Pardon Adams Covenant was to punish him not to pardon him if he fell That threatned Death upon Transgression this remits it That was an Act of Divine Soveraignty declaring the will of God this is an Act of Divine Grace passing an Act of Oblivion on the Crimes of the Creature That as it demanded no Repentance upon a failure so it promised no Mercy upon guilt That convened our Sin and condemned us for it this clears our guilt and comforts us under it The first Covenant related us to God as a Judge every transgression against it forfeited his indulgence as a Father The second delivers us from God as a condemning Judge to bring us under his Wing as an affectionate Father In the one there was a dreadful frown to scare us in the other a healing Wing to cover and relieve us Again in regard of Righteousness That demanded our performance of a Righteousness in and by our selves and our own strength This demands our acceptance of a Righteousness higher than ever the standing Angels had The Righteousness of the first Covenant was the Righteousness of a Man the Righteousness of the second is the Righteousness of a God †2 Cor. 5.21 Again in regard of that Obedience it demands it exacts not of us as a necessary condition the Perfection of Obedience but the sincerity of Obedience an uprightness in our intention not an unspottedness in our action an integrity in our aims and an industry in our compliance with Divine Precepts * Gen. 17.1 Walk before me and be thou perfect i. e. sincere What is hearty in our actions is accepted and what is defective is over-looked and not charg'd upon us because of the Obedience and Righteousness of our surety The first Covenant rejected all our services after Sin the services of a Person under the sentence of Death are but dead services This accepts our imperfect services after Faith in it That administred no strength to obey but supposed it This supposeth our inability to obey and confers some strength for it †Ezek. 36.27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes Again in regard of the Promises * Heb. 8.6 The old Covenant had good but the new hath better Promises of justification after guilt and sanctification after filth and glorification at last of the whole Man In the first there was provision against guilt but none for the removal of it Provision against filth but none for the cleansing of it Promise of happiness implied but not so great a one as that Life and Immortality in Heaven brought to light by the Gospel †2 Tim. 1.10 Why said to be brought to light by the Gospel because it was not only buried upon the fall of Man under the Curses of the Law but it was not so obvious to the conceptions of Man in his Innocent State Life indeed was implied to be promised upon his standing but not so glorious an immortality disclosed to be reserved for him if he stood As it is a Covenant of better Promises so a Covenant of sweeter Comforts Comforts more choice and Comforts more durable An everlasting Consolation and a good hâ—pe are the fruits of Grace i. e. the Covenant of Grace * 2 Thes 2.16 In the whole there is such a love disclosed as cannot be exprest The Apostle leaves it to every Mans mind to conceive it if he could what manner of love the Fâ—ther hath bâ—stowed upon us that we should be call'd the Sons of God †1 Joh. 3.1 It inâ—â—ates us in such a manner of the love of God as he bears to his Son the Image of his Person * John 17 2â— That the World may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me 3. This Goodness appears in the choice gift of himsâ—lf which he hath made over in this Covenant You know how it runs in Scripture I will be their God and they shall be my People †Gen. 17.7 A propriety in the Deity is made over by it As he gave the Blood of his Son to Seal the Covenant so he gave himself as the Blessing of the Covenant He is not ashamed to be called their God * Jer. 32.38 Though he be environ'd with Millions of Angels and presides over them in an unexpressible glory he is not ashamed of his condescensions to Man and to pass over himself as the propriety of his People as well as to take them to be his 'T is a diminution of the sense of the place to understand it of
was stain'd when they were debas'd to serve the Lusts of a Traytor instead of supporting the Duty of a Subject and employed in the defence of the Vices of Men against the Precepts and Authority of their common Soveraign This was a vilifying the Creature as it would be a vilifying the Sword of a Prince which is for the maintenance of Justice to be used for the Murder of an Innocent and a dishonouring a Royal Mansion to make it a Store-house for a Dunghil Had those things the benefit of sense they would groan under this disgrace and rise up in indignation against them that offered them this affront and turned them from their proper end When sin entred the Heavens that were made to shine upon Man and the Earth that was made to bear and nourish an innocent Creature were now subjected to serve a rebellious Creature And as Man turn'd against God so he made those instruments against God to serve his Enmity Luxury Sensuality Hence the Creatures are said to groan * Rom. 8.21 The whole Creation groans and travels in pain together until now They would really groan had they understanding to be sensible of the Outrage done them The whole Creation 'T is the pang of universal Nature the agony of the whole Creation to be alienated from the original use for which they were intended and be disjointed from their end to serve the disloyalty of a Rebel The Drunkards Cup and the Gluttons Table the Adulterers Bed and the proud Mans Purple would groan against the abuser of them But when all the fruits of Redemption shall be compleated the Goodness of God shall pour it self upon the Creatures deliver them from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God * Rom. 8.21 they shall be reduced to their true end and retun'd in their original harmony As the Creation doth passionately groan under its vanity so it doth earnestly expect and wait for its deliverance at the time of the manifestation of the Sons of God * V. 19. The manifestation of the Sons of God is the attainment of the liberty of the Creature They shall be freed from the vanity under which they are enslav'd As it entred by sin it shall vanish upon the total removal of sin What use they were design'd for in Paradise they will have afterwards except that of the nourishment of Men who shall be as Angels neither eating nor drinking The Glory of God shall be seen and contemplated in them It can hardly be thought that God made the World to be little a moment after he had reard it sullied by the Sin of Man and turn'd from its original end without thoughts of a restoration of it to its true end as well as Man to his lost happiness The World was made for Man Man hath not yet enjoyed the Creature in the first intention of them Sin made an interruption in that Fruition As Redemption restores Man to his true end so it restores the Creatures to their true use The restoration of the World to its beauty and order was the design of the Divine Goodness in the coming of Christ as it is intimated in Isaiah 11.6 7 8 9. As he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so he came not to destroy the Creatures but to repair them To restore to God the honour and pleasure of the Creation and restore to the Creatures their felicity in restoring their Order The Fall corrupted it and the full Redemption of Men restores it The last time is called not a time of destruction but a time of restitution and that of all things * Acts 3.21 of universal nature the main part of the Creation at least All those things which were the effects of sin will be abolisht the removal of the Cause beats down the effect The disorder and unruliness of the Creature arising from the venom of Mans transgression all the fierceness of one Creature against another shall vanish The World shall be nothing but an universal smile Nature shall put on triumphant Vestments There shall be no affrighting Thunders choaking Mists venomous Vapours or poysonous Plants It would not else be a restitution of all things They are now subject to be wasted by Judgments for the sin of their Possessor but the perfection of Mans Redemptions shall free them from every misery They have an advancement at the present for they are under a more glorious head as being the possession of Christ the heavenly Adam much superiour to the first As it 's the glory of a person to be a Servant to a Prince rather than a Peasant And afterwards they shall be elevated to a better state sharing in Man's happiness as well as they did in his misery As Servants are interested in the good Fortune of their Master and better'd by his advance in his Princes favour As Man in his first Creation was mutable and liable to sin so the Creatures were liable to vanity But as Man by Grace shall be freed from the Mutability so shall the Creatures be freed from the fears of an Invasion by the vanity that sully'd them before The condition of the Servants shall be suited to that of their Lord for whom they were design'd Hence all Creatures are call'd upon to rejoice upon the Perfection of Salvation and the appearance of Christs Royal Authority in the World * Psal 96.11.12 Psal 98.7 8. If they were to be destroyed there would be no ground to invite them to triumph Thus doth Divine Goodness spread its kind Arms over the whole Creation 3. The third thing is the Goodness of God in his Government That Goodness that despised not their Creation doth not despise their conduct The same Goodness that was the head that fram'd them is the helm that guides them his Goodness hovers over the whole frame either to prevent any wild disorders unsuitable to his Creating end or to conduct them to those ends which might illustrate his Wisdom and Goodness to his Creatures His Goodness doth no less incline him to provide for them than to frame them 'T is the natural inclination of man to love what is purely the birth of his own strength or skill He is fond of preserving his own Inventions as well as laborious in inventing them 'T is the glory of a Man to preserve them as well as to produce them God loves every thing which he hath made which love could not be without a continued diffusiveness to them suitable to the end for which he made them It would be a vain Goodness if it did not interest it self in managing the World as well as erecting it Without his Government every thing in the World would justle against one another The beauty of it would be more defaced it would be an unruly Mass a confus'd Chaos rather then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a comely World If Divine Goodness respected it when it was nothing it would much more respect it
hitherto spread his Wings over us Where can we meet with a nobler Object than Divine Goodness And what nobler work can be practiced by us than to consider it What is more sensible in all the Operations of his hands than his skill as they are consider'd in themselves and his goodness as they are consider'd in relation to us 'T is strange that we should miss the thoughts of it that we should look upon this Earth and every thing in it and yet overlook that which it is most full of viz. Divine Goodness * Psal 33 5â— It runs through the whole web of the World all is fram'd and diversifyed by Goodness 'T is one intire single Goodness which appears in various garbs and dresses in every part of the Creation Can we turn our Eyes inward and send our Eyes outward and see nothing of a Divinity in both worthy of our deepest and seriousest thoughts Is there any thing in the World we can behold but we see his Bounty since nothing was made but is one way or other beneficial to us Can we think of our daily food but we must have some reflecting thoughts on our great Caterer Can the sweetness of the Creature to our Palate obscure the sweetness of the Provider to our Minds 'T is strange that we should be regardless of that wherein every Creature without us and every sense within us and about us is a Tutor to instruct us Is it not reason we should think of the times wherein we were nothing and from thence run back to a never begun Eternity and view our selves in the thoughts of that Goodness to be in time brought forth upon this stage as we are at present Can we consider but one act of our understandings but one thought one blossom one spark of our Souls mounting upwards and not reflect upon the goodness of God to us who in that faculty that sparkles out Rational thoughts has advanced us to a nobler State and endued us with a nobler Principle than all the Creatures we see on Earth except those of our own Rank and Kind Can we consider but one foolish thought one sinful act and reflect upon the guilt and filth of it and not behold Goodness in sparing us and Miracles of Goodness in sending his Son to die for us for the Expiation of it This Perfection cannot well be out of our thoughts or at least it is horrible it should when it is writ in every line of the Creation and in a legible Rubrick in Bloody Letters in the Cross of his Son Let us think with our selves how often he hath multiplied his Blessings when we did deserve his Wrath how he hath sent one unexpected Benefit upon the heel of another to bring us with a swift pace the tidings of good will to us How often hath he deliver'd us from a Disease that had the Arrows of Death in its hand ready to pierce us How often hath he turn'd our fears into joys and our distempers into promoters of our felicity How often hath he mated a temptation sent seasonable supplies in the midst of a sore distress and prevented many dangers which we could not be so sensible of because we were in a great measure ignorant of them How should we meditate upon his goodness to our Souls in preventing some Sins in pardoning others in darting upon us the knowledge of his Gospel and of himself in the face of his Son Christ This seems to stick much upon the Spirit of Paul since he doth so often sprinkle his Epistles with the Titles of the Grace of God Riches of Grace Vnsearchable Riches of God Riches of Glory and cannot satisfie himself with the Extolling of it Certainly we should bear upon our heart a deep and quick sense of this Perfection as it was the design of God to manifest it so it would be acceptable to God for us to have a sense of it A dull receiver of his Blessings is no less nauseous to him than a dull dispenser of his Alms He loves a chearful giver * 2 Cor. 9.7 He doth himself what he loves in others He is chearful in giving and he loves we should be serious in thinking of him and have a right apprehension and sense of his Goodness 1. A right sense of his Goodness would dispose us to an ingenuous Worship of God It would damp our aversness to any act of Religion What made David so resolute and ready to Worship towards his holy Temple but the sense of his loving kindness * Psal 138.2 This would render him always in our mind a worthy Object of our Devotion a Stable Prop of our Confidence We should then adore him when we consider him as our God and our selves as the People of his Pasture and the Sheep of his hand * Psal 95.7 We should send up Prayers with strong faith and feeling and Praises with great joy and pleasure The sense of his Goodness would make us love him and our love to him would quicken our adoration of him but if we regard not this we shall have no mind to think of him no mind to act any thing towards him We may tremble at his Presence but not heartily Worship him We shall rather look upon him as a Tyrant and think no other affection due to him than what we reserve for an Oppressor viz. hatred and ill will 2. A sense of it will keep us humble A sense of it would effect that for which it self was intended viz. bring us to a Repentance for our Crimes and not suffer us to harden our selves against him When we should deeply consider how he hath made the Sun to shine upon us and his Rain to fall upon the Earth for our support the one to supple the Earth and the other to assist the Juyce of it to bring forth Fruits How would it reflect upon us our ill requitals and make us hang down our heads before him in a low posture pleasing to him and advantageous to our selves What would the first charge be upon our selves but what Moses brings in his Expostulation against the Israelites * Deut. 32.6 Do I thus requite the Lord What is this goodness for me who am so much below him for me who have so much incensed him for me who have so much abus'd what he hath allow'd It would bring to remembrance the horrour of our Crimes and set us a blushing before him when we should consider the multitude of his Benefits and our unworthy behaviour that hath not constrain'd him even against the inclination of his Goodness to punish us How little should we plead for a further liberty in Sin or palliate our former faults When we set Divine Goodness in one Column and our Transgressions in another and compare together their several Items it would fill us with a deep consciousness of our own guilt and devest us of any worth of our own in our approaches to him It would humble us that
best that saith the Psalmist speaks only according to the opinion of the vulgar and his design was not to write a Natural History Growth always accompanies Grace as well as it doth Nature in the Body not that it is without its qualms languishing fits as Children are not but still their distempers make them grow Grace is not an idle but an active principle 'T is not like the Psalmist means it of the strength of the Body or the prosperity and stability of his Government but the vigor of his Grace and Comfort since they are spiritual blessings here that are the matter of his song The healing the Disease conduceth to the sprouting up and flourishing of the Body 'T is the Nature of Grace to go from strength to strength 7. When sin is pardoned 't is perfectly pardon'd Verse 11 12. As far as the East is from the West so far hath he removed our transgressions from us The East and West are the greatest distance in the World the terms can never meet together When sin is pardoned it is never charged again the guilt of it can no more return than East can become West or West become East 8. Obedience is necessary to an interest in the mercy of God Verse 17. The mercy of the Lord is to them that fear him to them that remember his Commandments to do them Commands are to be remembered in order to practice a vain speculation is not the intent of the publication of them After the Psalmist had enumerated the benefits of God he reflects upon the greatness of God and considers him on his Throne encompast with the Angels the Ministers of his Providence Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom Rules over all He brings in this of his Dominion just after he had largely treated of his mercy Either 1. To signifie That God is not only to be praised for his mercy but for his Majesty both for the heighth and extent of his Authority 2. To extoll the greatness of his mercy and 〈◊〉 What I have said now Oh my Soul of the mercy of God and his paternal pity is commended by his Majesty his Grandeur hinders not his Clemency Though his Throne be High his Bowels are Tender He looks down upon his meanest Servants from the height of his Glory Since his Majesty is Infinite his Mercy must be as great as his Majesty It must be a greater pity lodging in his Breast than what is in any Creature since it is not dampt by the greatness of his Soveraignty 3. To render his Mercy more Comfortable The Mercy I have spoken of Oh my Soul is not the Mercy of a Subject but of a Soveraign An Executioner may torture a criminal and strip him of his Life and a vulgar pity cannot releive him but the Clemency of the Prince can perfectly pardon him 'T is that God who hath none above him to controul him none below him to resist him that hath performed all the acts of Grace to thee If God by his supream Authority pardons us who can reverse it If all the Subjects of God in the World should pardon us and God withhold his grant what will it profit us Take comfort Oh my Soul since God from his Throne in the highest and that God who rules over every particular of the Creation hath granted and sealed thy pardon to thee What would his Grace signifie if he were not a Monarch extending his Royal Empire over every thing and swaying all by his Scepter 4ly To render the Psalmists confidence more firm in any pressures Verse 15 16. He had considered the misery of man in the shortness of his Life his place should know him no more he should never return to his Authority Employments Opportunities that death would take from him but howsoever the Mercy and Majesty of God were the ground of his confidence He draws himself from poring upon any Calamities which may assault him to heaven the place where God orders all things that are done on the Earth He is able to protect us from our dangers and to deliver us from our distresses whatsoever miseries thou mayst lie under Oh my Soul cast thy Eye up to Heaven and see a pitying God in a Majestick Authority A God who can perform what he hath promised to them that fear him since he hath a Throne above the Heavens and bears sway over all that envy thy happiness and would stain thy felicity A God whose Authority cannot be curtailed and dismembered by any When the Prophet sollicites the sounding of the Divine Bowels he urgeth him by his dwelling in Heaven the habitation of his Holiness Isaiah 63.15 His Kingdom ruleth over all There is none therefore hath any Authority to make him break his Covenant or violate his promise 5. As an incentive to Obedience The Lord is merciful saith he to them that Remember his Commandments to do them verse 17 18. And then brings in the Text as an encouragement to observe his ' Precepts he hath a Majesty that deserves it from us and an Authority to protect us in it if a King in a small spot of Earth is to be Obeyed by his Subjects how much more is God who is more Majestick than all the Angels in Heaven and Monarchs on Earth who hath a majesty to exact our Obedience and a Mercy to allure it We should not set upon the performance of any Duty without an Eye lifted up to God as a great King It would make us willing to serve him the more Noble the Person the more Honourable and Powerful the Prince the more glorious is his Service A view of God upon his Throne will makes us think his Service our Priviledge his Precepts our Ornaments and Obedience to him the greatest Honour and Nobility It will make us weighty and serious in our performances It would stake us down to any duty The reason we are so loose and unmannerly in the carriage of our Souls before God is because we consider him not as a great King Malachy 1.14 Our Father which art in Heaven in regard of his Majesty is the Preface to Prayer Let us now consider the words in themselves The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom rules over all The Lord hath prepared The word signifies Establisht as well as prepared and might so be rendered Due preparation is a natural way to the Establishment of a thing Hasty resolveâ—â—eak and moulder This notes 1. The infiniteness of his Authority He prepares it none else for him 'T is a Dominion that originally resides in his Nature not deriv'd from any by birth or commission he alone prepar'd it He is the sole cause of his own Kingdom his Authority therefore is unbounded as infinite as his Nature None can set Laws to him because none but himself prepared his Throne for him As he will not impair his own Happiness so he will not abridge himself of his own Authority
his moral Power whereby it is lawful for him to do what he will Among men Strength and Authority are two distinct things A Subject may be a Giant and be stronger than his Prince but he hath not the same Authority as his Prince Worldly Dominion may be seated not in a brawny Arm but a sickly and infirm Body As knowledge and wisdom are distinguisht knowledge respects the matter being and nature of a thing Wisdom respects the harmony order and actual usefulness of a thing Knowledge searcheth the nature of a thing and Wisdom employs that thing to its proper use A man may have much Knowledge and little Wisdom so a man may have much Strength and little or no Authority A greater strength may be setled in the Servant but a greater Authority resides in the Master strength is the natural vigor of a Man God hath an infinite strength he hath a strength to bring to pass whatsoever he decrees he acts without fainting and weakness Isaiah 40.28 and impairs not his strength by the exercise of it As God is Lord he hath a right to Enact as he is Almighty he hath a power to Execute His strength is the executive power belonging to his Dominion In regard of his Soveraignty he hath a right to Command all Creatures In regard of his Almightiness he hath power to make his Commands be obey'd or to punish men for the violation of them His power is that whereby he subdues all Creatures under him his Dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all Creatures under him This Dominion is a right of making what he pleases of possessing what he made of disposing of what he doth possess whereas his power is an ability to make what he hath a right to Create to hold what he doth possess and to execute the manner wherein he resolves to dispose of his Creatures 2. All the other Attributes of God referre to this perfection of Dominion They all bespeak him fit for it and are discovered in the exercise of it which hath been manifested in the discourses of those Attributes we have passed through hitherto His Goodness fits him for it because he can never use his Authority but for the good of the Creatures and conducting them to their true end His Wisdom can never be mistaken in the exercise of it his power can accomplish the Decrees that flow from his absolute Authority What can be more rightful than the placing Authority in such an infinite Goodness that hath Bowels to pity as well as a Scepter to sway his Subjects That hath a mind to contrive and a will to regulate his contrivances for his own Glory and his Creatures good and an arm of power to bring to pass what he Orders Without this Dominion some perfections as Justice and Mercy would lie in obscurity and much of his Wisdom would be shrouded from our sight and knowledge 3. This of Dominion as well as that of Power hath been acknowledged by all The High Priest was to wave the Offering or shake it to and fro Exod. 29.24 which the Jews say was customarily from East to West and from North to South the four quarters of the World to signifie Gods Soveraignty over all the parts of the World And some of the Heathens in their Adorations turned their Bodies to all quarters to signifie the extensive Dominion of God throughout the whole Earth That Dominion did of right pertain to the Deity was confest by the Heathen in the name Baal given to their Idols which signifies Lord and was not a name of one Idol adored for a God but common to all the Eastern Idols God hath interwoven the notion of his Soveraignty in the Nature and Constitution of Man in the noblest and most inward acts of his Soul in that faculty or act which is most necessary for him in his converse in this World either with God or Man 'T is stampt upon the Conscience of Man and flashes in his face in every act of self Judgment Conscience passes upon a Man Every reflection of Conscience implies an obligation of man to some Law written in his Heart Rom. 2.15 This Law cannot be without a Legislator nor this Legislator without a Soveraign Dominion these are but natural and easie consequences in the mind of Man from every act of Conscience The indelible Authority of Conscience in Man in the whole exercise of it bears a respect to the Soveraignty of God clearly proclaims not only a supream being but a supream Governor and points man directly to it that a man may as soon deny his having such a reflecting principle within him as deny Gods Dominion over him and consequently over the whole World of rational Creatures 4. This notion of Soveraingty is inseparable from the notion of a God To acknowledge the Existence of a God and to acknowledge him a Rewarder are linkt together Heb. 11.6 To acknowledge him a Rewarder is to acknowledge him a Governor Rewards being the marks of Dominion The very name of a God includes in it a supremacy and an actual rule He cannot be conceived as God but he must be conceived as the highest Authority in the World 'T is as possible for him not to be God as not to be supream Wherein can the exercise of his excellencies be apparent but in his Soveraign rule To fancy an infinite power without a supream Dominion is to fancy a mighty senseless Statue fit to be beheld but not fit to be obey'd as not being able or having no right to give out Orders or not caring for the exercise of it God cannot be supposed to be the cheif being but he must be supposed to give Laws to all and receive Laws from none And if we suppose him with a perfection of Justice and Righteousness which we must do unless we would make a lame and imperfect God we must suppose him to have an intire Dominion without which he could never be able to manifest his Justice And without a supream Dominion he could not manifest the supremacy and infiniteness of his Righteousness 1. We cannot suppose God a Creator without supposing a Soveraign Dominion in him No Creature can be made without some Law in its Nature if it had not Law it would be Created to no purpose to no regular end it would be utterly unbecoming an infinite Wisdom to create a lawless Creature a Creature wholly vain much less can a rational Creature be made without a Law if it had no Law it were not rational For the very notion of a rational Creature implies reason to be a Law to it and implies an acting by rule * Maccov Colleg. Theolog 10. Disput 18. p. 6 7. or thereabout If you could suppose rational Creatures without a Law you might suppose that they might blaspheme their Creator and Murder their fellow Creatures and commit the most abominable villanies destructive to humane Society without sin for where there is no Law there is no
subject to God not in regard of the Divine Nature wherein there is an equality and consequently no Dominion of jurisdiction nor only in his humane nature but in the Oeconomy of a Redeemer considered as one design'd and consenting to be incarnate and take our flesh so that after this agreement God had a soveraign right to dispose of him according to the Articles consented to In regard of his undertaking and the advantage he was to bring to the Elect of God upon the Earth he calls God by the solemn Title of his Lord in that prophetick Psalm of him Psal 16.2 Oh my Soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my Goodness extends not unto thee but unto the Saints that are in the Earth It seems to be the speech of Christ in Heaven mentioning the Saints on Earth as at a distance from him I can add nothing to the glory of thy Majesty but the whole fruit of my Mediation and Sufferings will redound to the Saints on Earth and it may be observed that God is call'd the Lord of Hosts in the Evangelical Prophets Isaiah Haggai Zachary and Malachy more in reference to this affair of Redemption and the deliverance of the Church than for any other works of his Providence in the World 1. This Soveraignty of God appears in requiring satisfaction for the sin of man Had he indulg'd man after his fall and remitted his offence without a just compensation for the injury he had received by his Rebellion his Authority had been vilified man would always have been attempting against his jurisdiction there would have been a continual succession of Rebellions on mans part and if a continual succession of indulgences on Gods part he had quite disown'd his Authority over man and stript himself of the flower of his Crown satisfaction must have been requir'd sometime or other from the person thus rebelling or some other in his stead and to require it after the first act of sin was more preservative to the right of the Divine soveraignty than to do it after a multitude of repeated revolts God must have laid aside his Authority if he had laid aside wholly the exacting punishment for the offence of man 2. This Soveraignty of God appears in appointing Christ to this work of Redemption His soveraignty was before manifest over Angels and Men by the right of Creation there was nothing wanting to declare the highest charge of it but his ordering his own Son to become a mortal Creature the Lord of all things to become lower than those Angels that had as well as all other things receiv'd their being and beauty from him and to be reckon'd in his death among the dust and refuse of the World He by whom God created all things not only became a man but a crucified man by the Will of his Father Gal. 1.4 Who gave himself for our sins according to the Will of God to which may referre that expression Prov. 8.22 of his being possessed by God in the beginning of his way Possession is the Dominion of a thing invested in the possessor he was possessed indeed as a Son by eternal Generation He was possessed also in the beginning of his way or works of Creation as a Mediator by special constitution to this the expression seems to referre if you read on to the end of verse 31. wherein Christ speaks of his rejoycing in the habitable part of his Earth the Earth of the great God who had design'd him to this special work of Redemption He was a Son by Nature but a Mediator by Divine Will in regard of which Christ is often call'd Gods servant which is a relation to God as a Lord. God being the Lord of all things the Dominion of all things inferior to him is inseparable from him and in this regard the whole of what Christ was to do and did actually do was acted by him as the Will of God and is exprest so by himself in the Prophesie Psal 40.7 Lo I come verse 8. I delight to do thy will which are put together Heb. 10.7 Lo I come to do thy Will O God The designing Christ to this work was an act of mercy but founded on his soveraignty His compassionate bowels might have pitied us without his being soveraign but without it could not have releived us It was the Counsell of his own will as well as of his Bowels None was his Counsellor or perswader to that mercy he shew'd Rom. 11.34 Who hath been his Counsellor for it refers to that Mercy in sending the deliverer out of Sion verse 26. as well as to other things the Apostle had been discoursing of As God was at liberty to create or not to create so he was at liberty to Redeem or not to Redeem and at his liberty whither to appoint Christ to this work or not to call him out to it In giving this order to his Son his soveraignty was exercised in a higher manner than in all the orders and instructions he hath given out to Men or Angels and all the employments he ever sent them upon Christ hath names which signifie an Authority over him He is called an Angel and a Messenger Mal. 3.1 An Apostle Heb. 3.1 Declaring thereby that God hath as much Authority over him as over the Angels sent upon his Messages or over the Apostles commission'd by His Authority as he was consider'd in the quality of Mediator 3. This Soveraignty of God appears in transferring our sins upon Christ The Supream Power in a Nation can only appoint or allow of a commutation of punishment 'T is a part of Soveraignty to transferr the penalty due to the crime of one upon an other and substitute a sufferer with the sufferers own consent in the place of a criminal whom he had a mind to deliver from a deserv'd punishment God transferr'd the sins of men upon Christ and inflicted on him a punishment for them He summ'd up the debts of man charg'd them upon the score of Christ imputing to him the guilt and inflicting upon him the penalty Isa 53.6 The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all He made them all to meet upon his back He hath made him to be sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 He was made so by the Soveraign pleasure of God A punishment for sin as most understand it which could not be Righteously inflicted had not sin been first Righteously imputed by the consent of Christ and the order of the Judge of the World This imputation could be the immediate act of none but God because he was the sole Creditor A Creditor is not bound to accept of another's suretiship but it is at his liberty whither he will or no and when he doth accept of him he may challenge the Debt of him as if he were the Principal Debtor himself Christ made himself sin for us by a voluntary submission and God made him sin for us by a full imputation and treated him penally
though Divines take notice of other sins in the fall of Adam yet God in his tryal chargeth him with none but this and doth put upon his question an Emphasis of his own Authority Gen. 3.11 Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shoâ—ld'st not eat This I am displeased with that thou shouldest disown my dominion over thy self and this Garden This was the inlet to all the other sins as the acknowledgment of God's soveraignty is the first step to the practice of all the duties of a Creature so the disowning his soveraignty is the first spring of all the extravagancies of a Creature Every sin against the soveraign Law-giver is worthy of Death The Transgression of this positive command desâ—rved death and procured it to spread it self over the face of the World God's dominion cannot be despis'd without meriting the greatest punishment 1. Punishment necessarily follows upon the Doctrine of Soveraignty 'T is a faint and a feeble Soveraignty that cannot preserve it self and vindicate its own wrongs against râ—bellious subjects The height of God's dominion infers a vengeance on the contemners of it If God be an Eternal King he is an Eternal Judge Since sin unlinks the dependance between God the Soveraign and man the subject if God did not vindicate the rights of his Soveraignty and the Authority of his Law he would seem to despise his own dominion be weary of it and not act the part of a good Governour But God is tender of his prerogative and doth most bestir himself when men exalt themselves proudly against him Exod. 18.11 In the thing wherein they dealt proudly he will be above them When Pharaoh thought himself a mate for God and proudly rejected his commands as if they had been the messages of some petty Arabian Lord God rights his own Authority upon the life of his enemy by the ministry of the Red Sea He turned a great King into a beast to make him know that the most high ruled in the Kingdoms of men Dan. 4.16 17. The demand is by the word of the Holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the Kingdoms of men And that by the Petitions of the Angels who cannot endure that the Empire of God should be obscur'd and diminisht by the pride of man Besides the tender respect he hath to his own glory he is constantly presented with the sollicitations of the Angels to punish the proud ones of the earth that darken the glory of his Majesty 'T is necessary for the rescue of his honour and necessary for the satisfaction of his illustrious attendants who would think it a shame to them to serve a Lord that were always unconcern'd in the rebellions of his creatures and tamely suffer their spurns at his Throne and therefore there is a day wherein the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down the Cedars of Lebanon over-thrown and high Mountains levell'd that God may be exalted in that day Isa 2.11 12. c. Pride is a sin that immediately swells against God's Authority this shall be brought down that God may be exalted not that he should have a real exaltation as if he were actually depos'd from his Government but that he shall be manifested to be the Soveraign of the whole World 'T is necessary there should be a day to chase away those clouds that are upon his Throne that the lustre of his Majesty may break forth to the confusion of all the children of pride that vaunt against him God hath a dominion over us as a Law-giver as we are his creatures and a dominion over us in away of Justice as we are his criminals 2. This punishment is unavoidable 1. None can escape him He hath the sole Authority over Hell and Death the Keyes of both are in his hand The greatest Caesar can no more escape him than the meanest Peasant Who art thou O great Mountain before Zerubbabel Zac. 4.7 The height of Angels is no match for him much less that of the mortal grandees of the World they can no more resist him than the meanest person But are rather as the highest Steeples the fittest marks for his crushing thunder If he speaks the word the principalities of men come down and the Crown of their glory Jer. 13.18 He can take the Mighty away in a moment and that without hands i. e. without instruments Job 34.20 The strongest are like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image Iron and Clay Iron to man but Clay to God to be crumbled to nothing 2. What comfort can be reapt from a creature when the Soveraign of the World arms himself with terrors and begins his visitation Isa 10.3 What will you do in the day of visitation to whom will you flie for help and where will you leave your glory The torments from a Subject may be releived by the Prince but where can there be an appeal from the Soveraign of the World Where is there any above him to controul him if he will overthrow us who is there to call him to account and say to him what dost thou He works by an uncontroulable Authority he needs not ask leave of any Isa 43.13 He works and none can let it As when he will relieve none can afflict so when he will wound none can relieve If a King appoint the punishment of a rebel the greatest Favorite in the Court cannot speak a comfortable word to him The most beloved Angel in Heaven cannot sweeten and ease the spirit of a man that the Soveraign power is set against to make the butt of his wrath The Devils lye under his sentence and wear their chains as marks of their condemnation without hope of ever having them filed off since they are laid upon them by the Authority of an unaccountable Soveraign 3. By his Soveraign Authority God can make any creature the instrument of his vengeance He hath all the creatures at his beck and can Commission any of them to be a dreadful scourge Strong winds and tempests fulfil his word Psal 148.8 The Lightnings answer him at his call and cry aloud here are we Job 38.35 By his Soveraign Authority he can render Locusts as mischievous as Lions forge the meanest creatures into Swords and Arrows and commission the most despicable to be his Executioners He can cut off joy from our spirits and make our own hearts be our tormentors our most confident friends our persecutors our nearest relations to be his avengers They are more his who is their Soveraign than ours who place a vain confidence in them Rather than Abraham shall want children he can raise up stones and adopt them into his Family And rather than not execute his vengeance he can array the stones in the streets and make them his armed subjects against us If he speak the word a hair shall drop from our heads to choak us or a vapour congeal'd into Rheum in our heads shall dropdown and putrifie our
a day or two but continually In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it Referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition as to time But to leave this as uncertain it may be answered that as in some threatnings a condition is implyed though not exprest as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Niniveh Jonah 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroy'd the condition is imply'd unless they humble themselves and repent for upon their Repentance the sentence was deferred So here in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall dye the death or certainly dye unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime and the righting my honour This condition in regard of the event may as well be asserted to be implyed in this threatning as that of Repentance was in the other Or rather thou shalt dye thou shalt die spiritually thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul as thy Soul is the life of thy Body that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness What the Soul is to the Body a quickning Soul that the image of God is to the Soul a quickning image Or thou shalt dye the death or certainly dye thou shalt be liable to death * Perer in loc And so it is to be understood not of an actual death of the Body but the merit of death and the necessity of death thou wilt be obnoxious to death which will be avoided if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit thou shalt be a guilty person and so under a sentence of death that I may when I please inflict it on thee Death did come upon Adam that day because his nature was vitiated He was then also under an expectation of death he was obnoxious to it though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it As when the Apostle saith Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of sin he speaks to the Living and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin he means no more than that it was under a sentence and so a necessity of dying though not actually dead So thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust And as by his Patience towards man not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it his Justice afterwards was more eminent upon mans surety than it would have been if it had been then employ'd in all its severe operations upon man So was his Veracity eminent also in making good this threatning in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assum'd by a mighty person and upon that person in our nature who was infinitely higher than our nature 2. His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness and a sentence past against the sin in his justice though the execution of that sentence be suspended and the person reprieved by patience which is implyed Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Sentence is past but a speedy execution is stopt Some of the Heathens who would not imagine God unjust and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the World remain unpunisht and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness to free him from the charge of injustice denyed his providence and actual Government of the World for if he did take notice of humane affairs and concern himself in what was done upon the Earth they could not think an infinite goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable and leave the World in that disorder under the injustice of men They judged such a patience as was exercised by him if he did govern the World was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of Righteousness and conveniency to their Creator It might be demanded of such whether they never injur'd any in their lives and when certainly they have one way or other would they not think it a very unworthy if not unjust thing that a person so injur'd by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them And if every man should do the like would there not be a speedy dispatch made of Mankind Would not the World be a shambles and men rush forwards to one anothers destruction for the wrongs they have mutually received If it be accounted a virtue in man and no unrighteousness not presently to be all on fire against an offence by what right should any question the consistency of Gods patience with his justice Do we praise the lenity of Parents to children and shall we disparage the long suffering of God to men We do not censure the righteousness of Physitians and Chirurgeons because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to morrow And is it just to asperse God because he doth deferr his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do We never account him a bad Governour that deferrs the tryal and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons and beneficial to the publick either to make the nature of his crime more evident or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery A Governour indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous and forbad that which were worthy and commendable But if he delayes the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the Ruler or for some advantage to the offender himself to make him have a sence of and a regret for his offence we account him not unjust for this God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his Law nor cut off any thing from its due Authority If men do strengthen themselves by his long suffering against his Law 't is their fault not any unrighteousness in him He will take a time to vindicate the Righteousness of his own commands if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his Precept If Justice be natural to him and he cannot but punish sin yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners as the fire doth stubble put into it which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting But God is a free agent and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to Though he be naturally just yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts and a
freedom in the exerting them what time he judgeth most convenient in his Wisdom God is necessarily holy and is necessarily angry with sin his nature can never like it and cannot but be displeased with it yet he hath a liberty to restrain the effects of this anger for a time without disgracing his holiness or being interpreted to act unrighteously As well as a Prince or State may suspend the execution of a Law which they will never break only for a time and for a publick benefit If God should presently execute his Justice this perfection of patience which is a part of his goodness would never have an opportunity of discovery Part of his Glory for which he Created the World would lye in obscurity from the knowledge of his creature His Justice would be signal in the destruction of sinners but this stream of his goodness would be stopt up from any motion One perfection must not cloud another God hath his seasons to discover all one after another The times and seasons are in his own power Act. 1.7 The seasons of manifesting his own perfections as well as other things Succession of them in their distinct appearance makes no invasion upon the rights of any If justice should complain of an injury from patience because it is delaid patience hath more reason to complain of an injury from justice that by such a plea it would be wholly obscur'd and unactive For this perfection hath the shortest time to act its part of any it hath no stage but this World to move in Mercy hath a Heaven and Justice a Hell to display it self to Eternity but long suffering hath only a short liv'd earth for the compass of its operation Again Justice is so far from being wrong'd by Patience that it rather is made more illustrious and hath the fuller scope to exercise it self 'T is the more righted for being deferred and will have stronger grounds than before for its activity The equity of it will be more apparent to every reason the objections more fully answered against it when the way of dealing with sinners by patience hath been slighted When this dam of long suffering is remov'd the floods of fiery justice will rush down with more force and violence Justice will be fully recompenc'd for the delay when after Patience is abused it can spread it self over the offender with a more unquestionable Authority it will have more arguments to hit the sinner in the teeth with and silence him There will be a sharper edge for every stroke the sinner must not only pay for the score of his former sins but the score of abus'd patience so that justice hath no reason to commence a suit against God's slowness to anger What it shall want by the fulness of mercy upon the truly penitent it will gain by the contempt of patience on the impenitent abusers When men by such a carriage are ripen'd for the stroke of justice justice may strike without any regret in it self or pull-back from mercy The contempt of long suffering will silence the pleas of the one and spirit the severity of the other To conclude since God hath glorified his justice on Christ as a surety for sinners his patience is so far from interfering with the rights of his justice that it promotes it 'T is dispensed to this end that God might pardon with honour both upon the score of purchased mercy and contented justice that by a penitent sinners return his mercy might be acknowledg'd free and the satisfaction of his Justice by Christ be glorified in believing for he is long suffering from an unwillingness that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance 2 Pet. 3.9 i. e. All to whom the promise is made for to such the Apostle speaks and calls it long suffering to us ward And Repentance being an acknowledgment of the demerit of sin and a breaking off unrighteousness gives a particular glory to the freeness of mercy and the equity of Justice II. The 2d thing How this patience or slowness to anger is manifested 1. To our First Parents His slowness to anger was evidenced in not directing his Artillery against them when they first attempted to rebel He might have struck them dead when they began to bite at the temptation and were inclinable to a surrender for it was a degree of sinning and a breach of Loyalty as well though not so much as the consummating Act. God might have given way to the floods of his wrath at the first spring of man's aspiring thoughts when the monstrous motion of being as God began to be curdled in his heart But he took no notice of any of their Embryo sins till they came to a ripeness and started out of the womb of their minds into the open Air And after he had brought his sin to perfection God did not presently send that death upon him which he had merited but continued his Life to the space of 930 years Gen. 5.5 The Sun and Stars were not arrested from doing their Office for him Creatures were continued for his use the earth did not swallow him up nor a Thunderbolt from Heaven raze out the memory of him Though he had deserved to be treated with such a severity for his ungrateful demeanour to his Creator and Benefactor and affecting an equality with him yet God continued him with a sufficiency for his content after he turned rebel though not with such a liberality as when he remain'd a Loyal Subject And though he foresaw that he would not make an end of sinning but with an end of living he used him not in the same manner as he had used the Devils He added dayes and years to him after he had deserved death and hath for this 5000 years continued the propagation of Mankind and derived from his loyns an innumerable posterity and hath crown'd multitudes of them with hoary heads He might have extinguisht humane race at the first but since he hath preserved it till this day it must be interpreted nothing else but the effect of an admirable Patience 2. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Gentiles What they were we need no other witness than the Apostle Paul who summs up many of their crimes Rom. 1.29.30 31 32. He doth preface the Catalogue with a comprehensive expression being filled with all unrighteousness And concludes it with a dreadful aggravation They not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them They were so soakt and naturaliz'd in wickedness that they had no delight and found no sweetness in any thing else but what was in it self abominable All of them were plung'd in Idolatry and Superstition none of them but either set up their great men or creatures beneficial to the World and some the damned Spirits in his stead and paid an adoration to insensible Creatures or Devils which was due to God Some were so deprav'd in their lives and actions that it seem'd to be the
they would be a lost people A period will quickly be set to their lives no Created strength can restrain its power from crushing such a stiff-neck'd people Flesh and Blood cannot bear them nor any Created Spirit of a greater might 1. Consider the greatness of the provocations No light matter but actions of a great defiance What is the practical Language of most in the World but that of Pharaoh Who is the Lord that I should obey him How many question his being and more his Authority What blasphemies of him what reproaches of his Majesty Men drinking up iniquity like water and with a hast and ardency rushing into sin as the horse into the battle What is there in the reasonable creature that hath the quickest capacity and the deepest obligation to serve him but opposition and enmity a slight of him in every thing yea the services most seriously performed unsuited to the royalty and purity of so great a Being Such provocations as dare him to his face that are a burden to so righteous a Judge and so great a lover of the Authority and Majesty of his Laws That were there but a spark of anger in him 't is a wonder it doth not shew it self When he is invaded in all his attributes 't is astonishing that this single one of Patience and Meekness should with-stand the assault of all the rest of his perfections His being which is attack'd by sin speakes for vengeance his Justice cannot be imagin'd to stand silent without charging the sinner His Holiness cannot but encourage his Justice to urge its pleas and be an Advocate for it His Omniscience proves the truth of all the charge and his abused mercy hath little encouragement to make opposition to the Indictment Nothing but Patience stands in the gap to keep off the arrest of judgment from the sinner 2. His Patience is manifest if you consider the multitudes of these provocations Every man hath sin enough in a day to make him stand amazed at Divine Patience and to call it as well as the Apostle did all long suffering 1 Tim. 1.16 How few duties of a perfectly right stamp are performed What unworthy considerations mix themselves like dross with our purest and sincerest Gold How more numerous are the respects of the Worshippers of him to themselves than unto him How many services are paid him not out of love to him but because he should do us no hurt and some service When we do not so much design to please him as to please our selves by expectations of a reward from him What Master would endure a servant that endeavoured to please him only because he should not kill him Is that former charge of God upon the Old World yet out of date That the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil and that continually Gen. 6.5 Was not the New World as chargeable with it as the Old Certainly it was Gen. 8.21 And is of as much force this very minute as it was then How many are the sins against knowledge as well as those of ignorance Presumptuous sins as well as those of infirmity How numerous those of Omission and Commission * Lessius pag. 152. 'T is above the reach of any man's understanding to conceive all the Blasphemies Oaths Thefts Adulteries Murders Oppressions contempt of Religion the open Idolatries of Turks and Heathens the more spiritual and refin'd Idolatries of others Add to those the ingratitude of those that profess his name their pride earthlyness carelesness sluggishness to divine duties and in every one of those a multitude of provocations The whole man being engag'd in every sin the understanding contriving it the will embracing it the affections complying with it and all the members of the body instruments in the acting the unrighteousness of it Every one of these faculties bestowed upon men by him are armed against him in every act and in every employment of them there is a distinct provocation though center'd in one sinful end and object What are the offences all the men of the World receive from their fellow creatures to the injuries God receives from men but as a small dust of earth to the whole mass of Earth and Heaven too What multitudes of sins is one prophane wretch guilty of in the space of 20 40 50 years Who can compute the vast number of his transgressions from the first use of reason to the time of the separation of his Soul from his Body from his entrance into the World to his exit What are those to those of a whole Village of the like Inhabitants What are those to those of a great City Who can number up all the foul mouth'd Oaths the beastly excess the goatish uncleanness committed in the space of a day year twenty years in this City much less in the whole Nation least of all in the whole World Were it no more than the common Idolatry of former ages when the whole World turn'd their backs upon their Creator and passed him by to sue to a Creature a stock or stone or a degraded spirit How provoking would it be to a Prince to see a whole City under his Dominion deny him a respect and pay it to his scullion or the common Executioner he employs Add to this the unjust invasions of Kings the oppressions exercised upon men all the private and publick sins that have been in the World ever since it began The Gentiles were describ'd by the Apostle Rom. 1.29 30 31. in a black character They were haters of God yet how did the Riches of his patience preserve multitudes of such disingenuous persons and how many millions of such haters of him breath every day in his Air and are maintained by his bounty have their tables sprâ—â—d and their cups fill'd to the brim and that too in the midst of reiterated belchings of their enmity against him All are under sufficient provocations of him to the highest indignation The presiding Angels over Nations could not forbear in Love and Honour to their Governour to arm themselves to the destruction of their several charges if Divine patience did not set them a pattern and their obedience incline them to expect his Orders before they act what their zeal would prompt them to The Devils would be glad of Commission to destroy the World but that his patience puts a stop to their fury 〈◊〉 well as his own Justice 3. Consider the long time of this patience He spread out his handâ— all the day to a rebellious World Isaiah 65.2 All mens day all Gods day which is a thousand years he hath born with the gross of mankind with all the Nations of the World in a long succession of ages for five thousand years and upwards already and will bear with them till the time comes for the World dissolution He hath suffered the monstrous acts of men and endur'd the contradictions of a sinful World against himself from the first sin of Adam
to the last committed this minute The line of his patience hath run along with the duration of the World to this day and there is not any one of Adams posterity but hath been expensive to him and partaked of the riches of it 4. All these he bears when he hath a sense of them He sees every day the Roll and Catalogue of sin increasing he hath a distinct view of every one from the sin of Adam to the last fil'd up in his Omniscience and yet gives no order for the arrest of the World He knows men fitted for destruction all the instants he exerciseth long-suffering towards them which makes the Apostle call it not simply long suffering without the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much long-suffering Rom. 9.23 There is not a grain in the whole Mass of sin that he hath not a distinct knowledge of and of the quality of it He perfectly understands the greatness of his own Majesty that is vilified and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him He is sollicited by his Justice directed by his Omniscience and armed with judgments to vindicate himself but his arm is restrained by patience To conclude no indignity is hid from him no iniquity is beloved by him the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite and the knowledge of the malice is exact The subsisting of the World under such weighty provocations so numerous so long time and with his full sence of every one of them is an evidence of such a forbearance and long-suffering that the addition of Riches which the Apostle puts to it Rom. 2.4 labours with an insufficiency clearly to display it III. Why God doth exercise so much patience 1. To shew himself appeaseable God did not declare by his patience to former ages or any age that he was appeased with them or that they were in his favour but that he was appeasable that he was not an implacable Enemy but that they might find him favourable to them if they did seek after him The continuance of the World by patience and the bestowing many mercies by goodness were not a natural revelation of the manner how he would be appeased That was made known only by the Prophets and after the coming of Christ by the Apostles and had indeed been intelligible in some sort to the whole World had there been a faithfulness in Adams posterity to transmit the tradition of the first promise to succeeding Generations Had not the knowledge of that dyed by their carelesness and neglect it had been easie to tell the reason of Gods patience to be in order to the exhibition of the Seed of the woman to bruise the Serpents head They could not but naturally know themselves sinners and worthy of death they might be easie reflections upon themselves collect that they were not in that comely and harmonious posture now as they were when God first wrought them with his own finger and placed them as his Lieutenants in the World they knew they did grievously offend him this they were taught by the sprinklings of his judgments among them sometimes And since he did not utterly root up mankind his sparing patience was a prologue of some further favours or pardoning Grace to be display'd to the World by some methods of God yet unknown to them Though the Earth was something impair'd by the curse after the fall yet the main pillars of it stood the strate of the natural motions of the Creature was not chang'd the Heavens remain'd in the same posture wherein they were Created the Sun and Moon and other heavenly bodies continued their usefulness and refreshing influences to man The Heavens did still declare the Glory of God day unto day did utter speech their line is gone throughout all the Earth and their words to the end of the World Psal 19.1 2 3. 4. Which declar'd God to be willing to do good to his Creatures and were as so many legible letters or rudiments whereby they might read his patience and that a further design of favour to the World lay hid in that Patience Paul applies this to the Preaching of the Gospel Rom. 10.18 Have they not heard the word of God yes verily their sound went into all the Earth and their words unto the end of the World Redeeming grace could not be spell'd out by them in a clear notion but yet they did declare that which is the Foundation of Gospel Mercy Were not God patient there were no room for a Gospel Mercy so that the Heavens declare the Gospel not formally but fundamentally in declaring the long-suffering of God without which no Gospel had been fram'd or could have been expected They could not but read in those things favourable inclinations towards them And though they could not be ignorant that they deserved a mark of justice yet seeing themselves supported by God and beholding the regular motions of the Heavens from day to day and the Revolutions of the seasons of the year the natural conclusion they might draw from thence was that God was placable Since he behav'd himself more as a tender Friend that had no mind to be at War with them than an enraged Enemy The good things which he gave them and the patience whereby he spar'd them were no arguments of an impâ—acable disposition And therefore of a disposition willing to be appeased This is clearly the design of the Apostles arguing with the Lystrians when they would have offered Sacrifices to Paul Acts 14.17 When God suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways he did not leave himself without witness giving Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons What were those Witnesses of Not only of the Being of a God by their readiness to sacrifice to those that were not Gods only supposed to be so in their false imaginations but witnesses to the tenderness of God that he had no mind to be severe with his Creatures But would allure them by ways of Goodness * Amyrald dissert pag. 191. 192. Had not Gods patience tended to this end to bring the World under another dispensation the Apostles arguing from it had not been sutable to his design which seems to be a hindering the sacrifices they intended for them and a drawing them to embrace the Gospel and therefore preparing the way to it by speaking of the Patience and Goodness of God to them as an unquestionable testimony of the reconcileableness of God to them by some sacrifice which was represented under the common notion of Sacrifices These things were not Witnesses of Christ or syllables whereby they could spell out the redeeming person but Witnesses that God was placable in his own nature When man abused those noble faculties God had given him and diverted them from the use and service God intended them for God might have stript man of them the first time that he mis-employed them and it would have seemed most agreeable to this wisdom and Justice not to suffer himself to be
than I thou hast rewarded me good whereas I have rewarded thee evil And shall we not relent at God's wonderful long suffering and silencing his anger so much He could puff away our lives but he will not and yet we endeavour to strip him of his being though we cannot 1. Let us consider the wayes how slowness to anger is abused 1. 'T is abused by mis-interpretations of it when men slander his Patience to be only a carelesness and neglect of his providence as Averroes argued from his slowness to anger a total neglect of the Government of the lower World Or when men from his long suffering charge him with impurity as if his Patience were a consent to their crimes and because he suffered them without calling them to account he were one of their partisans and as wicked as themselves Psal 50.21 Because I kept silence thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thy self His silence makes them conclude him to be an abetter of and a consort in their sins And think him more pleased with their iniquity than their obedience Or when they will inferre from his forbearance a want of his Omniscience Because he suffers their sins they imagine he forgets them Psal 10.11 He hath said in his Heart God hath forgotten Thinking his patience proceeds not from the sweetness of his nature but a weakness of his mind How base is it instead of admiring him to disparage him for it and because he stands in so advantageous a posture towards us not to own the choicest prerogatives of his Deity This is to make a perfection so useful to us to shadow and extinguish those others which are the prime flowers of his Crown 2. His Patience is abused by continuing in a course of Sin under the influences of it How much is it the practical language of men Come let us commit this or that iniquity since Divine patience hath suffered worse than this at our hands Nothing is remitted to their sensual pleasures and eagerness in them How often did the Israelites repeat their murmurings against him as if they would put his patience to the utmost proof and see how far the line of it could extend They were no sooner satisfied in one thing but they quarrelled with him about another as if he had no other attribute to put in motion against them They tempted him as often as he releived them as though the declaration of his name to Moses 34 of Exod. To be a God gracious and Long-suffering had been intended for no other purpose but a protection of them in their Rebellions Such a sort of men the Prophet speaks of that were setled in their Lees or dregs Zeph. 1.12 They were congeal'd and frozen in their successful wickedness such an abuse of Divine patience is the very dreggs of sin God chargeth it highly upon the Jews Isaiah 57.11 I have held my peace even of old and thou fearest me not my silence made thee confident yea impudent in thy sin 3. His patience is abused by repeating sin after God hath by an act of his patience taken off some affliction from men As mettals melted in the fire remain fluid under the operations of the flames yet when removed from the Fire they quickly return to their former hardness and sometimes grow harder than they were before So men who in their afflictions seem to be melted like Ahab confess their sins lye prostrate before God and seek him early yet if they be brought from under the power of their afflictions they return to their old nature and are as stiff against God and resist the blows of the Spirit as much as they did before They think they have a new stock of patience to sin upon Pharaoh was some what thaw'd under judgments and frozen again under forbearance Exod. 9.27.34 Many will howl when God strikes them and laugh at him when he forbears them Thus that patience which should melt us doth often hard'n us which is not an effect natural to his patience but natural to our abusing corruption 4. His patience is abus'd by taking encouragement from it to mount to greater degrees of Sin Because God is slow to Anger men are more fierce in sin and not only continue in their old Rebellions but heap new upon them If he spare them for three transgressions they will commit four as is intimated in the first and second of Amos Mens hearts are fully set in them to do evil because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed Eccles 8.11 Their Hearts are more desperately bent before they had some waverings and pull-backs but after a fair Sun-shine of Divine patience they entertain more unbridled resolutions and pass forward with more liberty and licentiousness They make his long-suffering subservient to turn out all those little reletings and regrets they had before and banish all thoughts of barring out a Temptation No encouragement is given to men by Gods patience but they force it by their presumption They invert Gods order and bind themselves stronger to iniquity by that which should bind them faster to their duty A happy escape at Sea makes men go more confidently into the deeps afterward Thus we deal with God as Debtors do with good natur'd Creditors Because they do not dunn them for what they owe they take encouragement to run more upon the score till the summe amounts above their ability of payment But let it be considered 1. That this abuse of patience is a high Sin As every act of forbearance obligeth us to duty so every act of it abused encreaseth our guilt The more frequent its sollicitations of us have been the deeper aggravations our sin receives by it Every sin after an act of divine patience contracts a blacker guilt The sparing us after the last sin we committed was a superadded act of long-suffering and a laying out more of his riches upon us And therefore every new act committed is a despite against greater riches expended and greater cost upon us and against his preserving us from the hand of Justice for the last transgression 'T is disingenuous not to have a due resentment of so much Goodness and base to injure him the more because he doth not right himself Shall he receive the more wrongs from us by how much the sweeter he is to us No mans Conscience but will tell him 't is vile to preferre the satisfaction of a sordid Lust before the Councel of a God of so gracious a disposition The sweeter the nature the fouler is the injury that is done unto it 2. 'T is dangerous to abuse his patience Contempt of kindness is most irksom to an ingenuous spirit and he is worthy to have the arrows of Gods indignation lodg'd in his heart who despiseth the Riches of his long-suffâ—â—â—ng For 1. The time of patience will have an end Though his Spirit strives with man yet it shall not always strive Gen. 6.3 Though there be a time wherein Jerusalem might
transgression But those things are accounted sins by all mankind and sins against the supream being So that a Dominion and the exercise of it is so fast linkt to God so intirely in him so intrinsick in his Nature that it cannot be imagined that a rational Creature can be made by him without a stamp and mark of that Dominion in his very nature and frame 't is so inseparable from God in his very act of Creation 2. 'T is such a Dominion as cannot be renounced by God himself 'T is so intrinsick and connatural to him so inlaid in the nature of God that he cannot strip himself of it nor of the exercise of it while any Creature remains ' Tâ—â— preserv'd by him for it could not subsist of its self 't is govern'd by him it could not else answer its end 'T is impossible there can be a Creature which hath not God for its Lord. Christ himself though in regard of his Deity equal with God yet in regard of his created state and assuming our nature was God's servant was govern'd by him in the whole of his office acted according to his command and directions God calls him his servant Isaiah 42.1 And Christ in that Prophetick Psalm of him calls God his Lord. Psal 16.2 Oh my Soul Thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord. It was impossible it should be otherwise Justice had been so far from being satisfi'd that it had been highly incensed if the order of things in the due subjection to God had been broke and his terms had not been complied with It would be a Judgment upon the World if God should give up the Government to any else as it is when he gives Children to be Princes Isaiah 3.4 i. e. Children in understanding 3. 'T is so inseparable that it cannot be communicated to any Creature No Creature is able to exercise it every Creature is unable to perform all the offices that belong to this Dominion No Creature can impose Laws upon the Consciences of men Man knows not the inlets into the Soul his pen cannot reach the inwards of man What Laws he hath power to propose to Conscience he cannot see executed because every Creature wants omniscience he is not able to perceive all those breaches of the Law which may be committed at the same time in so many Cities so many Chambers Or suppose an Angel in regard of the height of his standing and the insufficiency of Walls and darkness and distance to obstruct his view can behold mens actions yet he cannot know the internal acts of mens minds and Wills without some outward eruption and appearance of them And if he be ignorant of them how can he execute his Laws If he only understand the outward fact without the inward thought how can he dispense a Justice proportionable to the crime He must needs be ignorant of that which adds the greatest aggravation sometimes to a sin and inflict a lighter punishment upon that which receives a deeper tincture from the inward posture of the mind than another fact may do which in the outward act may appear more base and unjust and so while he intends Righteousness may act a degree of injustice * Mâ—â—â—ii Colleg. Theoloâ— Disp 18. p. 12 13. Besides no Creature can inflict a due punishment for sin that which is due to sin is a loss of the Vision and sight of God but none can deprive any of that but God himself nor can a Creature reward another with Eternal Life which consists in Communion with God which none but God can bestow II. Thing Wherein the Dominion of God is founded 1. On the Excellency of his Nature Indeed a bare excellency of Nature bespeaks a fitness for Government but doth not properly convey a right of Government Excellency speaks aptitude not Title A Subject may have more Wisdom than the Prince and be fitter to hold the Reins of Government but he hath not a Title to Royalty A man of large capacity and strong vertue is fit to serve his Countrey in Parliament but the Election of the People conveys a Title to him Yet a strain of Intellectual and Moral abilities beyond others is a foundation for Dominion And it is commonly seen that such eminences in men though they do not invest them with a Civil Authority or an Authority of Jurisdiction yet they create a veneration in the minds of men their vertue attracts reverence and their advice is regarded as an Oracle Old men by their age when stored with more Wisdom and Knowledge by reason of their long experience acquire a kind of power over the younger in their Dictates and Counsels so that they gain by the strength of that excellency a real Authority in the minds of those men they converse with and possess themselves of a deep respect from them God therefore being an incomprehensible ocean of all perfection and possessing infinitely all those vertues that may lay a claim to Dominion hath the first foundation of it in his own nature His incomparable and unparalell'd excellency as well as the greatness of his work attracts the voluntary Worship of him as a Soveraign Lord. Psal 86.8 Among the Gods there is none like unto thee neither are there any works like unto thy work All Nations shall come and Worship before thee Though his benefits are great engagements to our Obedience and Affection yet his infinite Majesty and perfection requires the first place in our acknowledgements and adorations Upon this account God claims it Isaiah 46.9 I am God and there is none like me I will do all my pleasure And the Prophet Jeremy upon the same account acknowledgeth it Jer. 10.6 7. Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee Oh Lord thou art great and thy name is great in might who would not fear thee O King of Nations For to thee doth it appertain Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee And this is a more noble Title of Dominion It being an uncreated Title and more eminent than that of Creation or Preservation * 〈◊〉 Thâ—olog Nat. pag. 757. This is the natural order God hath plac'd in his Creature 's that the more excellent should rule the inferior He committed not the Government of lower Creatures to Lions and Tygers that have a delight in blood but no knowledge of vertue but to man who had an eminence in his nature above other Creatures and was formed with a perfect rectitude and a height of reason to guide the reins over them In man the Soul being of a more sublime nature is set of right to rule over the Body the Mind the most excellent Faculty of the Soul to rule over the other Powers of it and Wisdom the most excellent habit of the Mind to guide and regulate that in its determinations and when the Body and sensitive Appetite controul the Soul and Mind 't is an Usurpation against Nature not a rule according to Nature the excellency therefore of